Apartment Complex? Yes it is
by Nat Roze
Summary: Aizen is not quite right in the head. He needs to destroy Karakura, right? So he rents apartment space there. Watch as Grimmjow is forced to share living space, Nnoitra is called a molester, Ichigo has a conniption, and more. Contains yaoi and swearing. (edit, several years later: I'm so sorry i wrote this. Please spare yourselves the agony of reading it). MAJOR CRACKFIC
1. The Day of Reckoning

Hello hello!

This is a lot of firsts for me. This is my first story for Bleach, this is my first time writing a story in the first person, and this is also my first Yaoi fic. Please be nice to me.

This is a little confusing, I think. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

I don't own Bleach or any of its characters.

Once again, Yaoi warning, in case you didn't pick it up before.

Pairings: Ulquiorra+Grimmjow, and soon-to-be announced pairings for Szayel, Ichimaru, possibly Stark, and in later chapters, Ichigo+Renji

* * *

Apartment Complex? Yes it is.

Strange things occur in Karakura town. Maybe it's because of the high amount of spirit particles that gather there. Maybe it's because Ichigo Kurosaki's there. Or maybe there's an entirely new reason that we have yet to discover.

Either way, Aizen needed Karakura town to accomplish his goals. And so, after nearly getting destroyed along with Las Noches during the war, Aizen decided it would be much easier than hiding out in Hueco Mundo. What would be, exactly? Going to the exact place he intended to destroy. After all, nobody would suspect him to do that (except for Hanatarou, but nobody listened).

So, against Tousen's better judgment, and Gin's encouragement, Aizen rented enough living space for the remaining Espada in a large twenty-seven story apartment building in downtown Karakura.

...

Chapter 1; or the Day of Reckoning

Why Aizen decided to rent an apartment in the exact city he intended to one day destroy was beyond me. The creep keeps the Hogyoku in a secret panel behind the wall above his bed now. Or, he intends to, he says. First of all, he's making us choose names out of a fucking hat. Or he would be, if Gin (the bastard) hadn't decided he wanted to pick for us. Why? Because Aizen didn't rent enough space for each of us to have separate rooms, so we have to fucking SHARE a room with someone else! The idea of that is just wonderful! Three people get their own rooms. Aizen gets one, obviously, and Halibel's already sharing one with Nel, 'cuz they're the only girls. Oh, Gin just drew the other two names for separate rooms… Lucky. Tousen and Barragan. Makes sense though, they would want them more than anyone… Woah. Was I just being understanding of someone else?! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, GRIMMJOW! I mentally slapped myself, and decided to listen for who I would have to share a room with… Oh SHIT, there's a one in six chance I'll have to share a room with NNOITRA. That sounds just like a shitload of fun, the bastard'll prob'ly rape me.

Gin reached into the hat and pulled out two slips with names on them. "Oh, looks like I get to share a room with Szayel Apollo!" Neither one looked particularly upset about that, and Aizen sent them off to pick a room. Tousen took over the name drawing. Fuck, now there's a one in FOUR chance I'm gonna have to room with Nnoitra! Shit shit shit shit shit.

Tousen drew two more names, but I wasn't paying any attention. I was dwelling on the nasty fact that I really would despise to share a room with any of the other people here. But ESPECIALLY not Nnoitra. Stark would be tolerable, all he does is sleep. But then Tousen finally got someone to read the names for him (the dude's friggin' blind, so…). "Nnoitra and… Stark" announced Aizen. "Go pick out a room." Stark looked like a bomb had gone off right next to his brain.

Well, the only good choice and my last choice were gone… shit. I just realized who that left me with.

"And the last room belongs to Grimmjow and Ulquiorra," Aizen said, unusually cheerfully. I glared at the emocar. He paid no attention to me, and instead picked up whatever luggage he had and dragged it into the elevator. Then he turned around, glared at me, and said, "Hurry up already, sexta. I haven't got all day."

You can see why I hate the little emo bitch.

I followed Ulquiorra to …our room (I can't even think it without shuddering at the thought). I had to. I would have gone ahead much faster, but he refused to give me the key. The second he unlocked the door, I ran inside and fell over myself in relief. Two bedrooms in the apartment complex! Even if we were sharing living space, I would rather have slept in the sink than shared a bedroom with Ulquiorra.

"I call this room," I said, pointing to the one on the left of the kitchen. Ulquiorra shrugged, and walked quietly over to the other room, and closed the door. I threw my stuff threw my bedroom door, and peered inside. "Needs a complete renovation," I muttered. I turned around and looked at the rest of the apartment. The rest of it was actually really nice-looking. The kitchen was right to the left of my room, and to the other side of the kitchen was a sitting area. Then there was a hallway that lead to another extra room, and Ulquiorra's room. The door was parallel to the sitting area. 'Where the fuck is the bathroom?!' I thought. I walked back into my room, and sighed in relief when I realized each room had its own bathroom. "Maybe this will be semi-tolerable…" I immediately unpacked all my stuff, which consisted mostly of Espada uniforms, Pantera, and a whole bunch of rock concert posters I had found at a yard sale I had gone to in the human world one time. Then I opened the little tiny box that Aizen had given each of us. In it was a note, written in precocious script. It said:

Dear Grimmjow;

As we are now currently residing in the world of the living, you are currently in a gigai, correct? If you are going to coexist in this world, you cannot wear your Espada uniform. It would look particularly strange to wear it when going to the grocery store, don't you think? Or going to the mall? Or anywhere, really. So in this box is a makeshift outfit, as well as a gift certificate to the closest department store. I hope you enjoy the gift, and make sure to get along with your new roommate, okay?

Sincerely,

Sousuke Aizen

The 'sincerely' thing REALLY pissed me off. I unfolded the makeshift outfit. It was a generic pair of jeans and a generic white tee-shirt, and under that was a generic pair of tennis shoes with a generic white pair of socks shoved in one of them. I decided to go to the department store immediately.

I walked out of my room wearing the generic outfit, only to find Ulquiorra standing in the middle of the kitchen, presumably waiting for me, wearing an identical generic outfit. I stifled a laugh.

"So you decided we needed to go to the department store as well?" He asked.

"Who said we? I just need something worth wearing."

"Good point. Szayel already left with Halibel and Nel, and Stark's currently taking a nap. We can leave as soon as possible, I hope."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?! I can't stand this outfit! Let's get going, Emocar."

"What did you call me?"

"Nothin', Ulquiorra."

...

The department store was unusually enormous. Szayel had dragged me to one once, looking for hydrochloric acid for some experiment of his, and it wasn't even half the size of the towering structure in front of Ulquiorra and me.

"Damn…" I said, a little too loudly, and some kid's parent glared at me and covered the kid's ears.

"Well, let's begin, and hope we don't get lost," Ulquiorra said, with a lack of enthusiasm so big, it was even unusual for him.

...

We entered through the wrong door.

If you have ever been a guy who has accidentally wandered into the women's department and survived, count yourself extremely lucky. If you have ever been a guy who has accidentally entered the makeup department, I want to know how much therapy you went through to forget the experience. I know I'll prob'ly need a few years worth.

After finally escaping the ladies with the perfume squirt-bottles, we quickly located the teens department (the men's' department looked WAY too stuffy). Ulquiorra made short work of finding stuff to wear, and put all of it in a shopping cart. Most of the stuff he had picked up looked like a cross between Emo fashion and Preppy fashion. Whatever it was, it looked very… original. Then I thought of what Szayel must have picked out, and cringed.

I, on the other hand, had no idea what to buy. I looked at the punk stuff, and the skater stuff, and the rocker stuff, and everything in between and still had no idea what to buy. "How did you pick out all that stuff so fast?!" I shouted in Ulquiorra's direction.

"Do you need help picking out clothes, Grimmjow?" He smirked at me.

"Shut up."

Ulquiorra ignored me, and instead walked over to a rack of stuff, and threw me a red t-shirt with a black pattern of some sort on it. Regrettably, it was really cool, but I'd never admit that to him. He kept tossing me all sorts of cool stuff, and then said, "Are you happy? I want to go to a furniture store now. My room could use some updating."

Needless to say, we spent much longer at the department store than intended. Ulquiorra insisted on finding furniture that matched, and forbade me from buying random stuff at IKEA, even though the place is fucking full of the stuff. He did let me get a beanbag chair though (those things are awesome). He also forced me to spend an unusually long amount of time picking out paint colors, when I took ten minutes finding a nice shade of blood red for my room, and black spray-paint to graffiti all over the walls with. Of course, Ulquiorra-perfectionist-Schiffer took an hour and a half picking out the right shade of _gray_. Seriously, dude, half the stuff he bought was some shade of gray. The other half was green. I would swear he was fucking colorblind otherwise.

...

When we finally got home, I felt like crashing, but I knew we had lots of work to do now that we had spent a good part of our day picking out furniture and crap. Ulquiorra immediately reached into a bag and took out a corkboard, which he nailed to the wall.

"What the hell's that for?" I asked, glaring at the corkboard. Ulquiorra jabbed me with a thumbtack.

"In case we need to leave notes for the other," He said matter-of-factly. "And we can hang the room key on it." He punctuated this statement by thumbtacking the room key to the corkboard.

"Whatever. I'm gonna go graffiti my bedroom walls. See ya, Emocar." I dragged my furniture to my room, and glared over my shoulder as I slammed the door.

Once I had my new furniture assembled, I pushed the old stuff out the window (I later found out that the dumpster is directly below my room, twenty-seven stories down. Yes, we're on the top floor). Painting was actually really fun. Once I had the red base coat on, I graffitied my name on one of the walls, and on the wall parallel to it, I hung up all my rock concert posters. After organizing all my furniture in no discernable order and putting away my new clothes, I went into the living room to find Ulquiorra attempting to plug in about a million cords attached to a flattish tech thingy.

"What the hell is that thing?" I asked, sitting down amidst the wires and cords.

"This," Ulquiorra said, "Is a computer. Aizen-sama dropped it off a moment ago. I can't read the instructions though, they're printed too small." As if to emphasize his point, Ulquiorra squinted at the tiny text on the instructions, glared at them, and made another attempt on the computer. "Help me out here. There are too many wires to count, and I can't do all of this myself. How Szayel has his up and running is beyond me."

"Szayel's a scientist, duh. And I'm not helping you."

"If you don't help, I won't let you use the computer. EVER."

Good enough reason for me.

It took us about half an hour to get most of the wires plugged in. Most of that time was spent arguing over which wire went in which slot. And now that we had that figured out… Ulquiorra was shouting at me for telling him the wrong slot to put a wire in, and the wire got stuck, and he couldn't get it out.

"Don't get your shorts in a knot, cuatro. I'll give you a hand with this." Okay, truthfully, I wanted to see the bastard go flying when the wire finally came out.

The two of us grabbed the wire, and on the count of three, we pulled. It was stuck way harder than I thought, because we had to pull REALLY hard to even make it move. And then, POW, the wire came right out.

Y'know how I said I wanted to see Ulquiorra go flying? Well, I did. I just didn't wanna see it from this angle: Flying backwards right along with him, and falling over on the couch together.

Together meaning he landed in my lap- WHAT THE FUCK! I turned bright red and shoved Ulquiorra off of me, which started another shouting match. The shouting ended with a knock on the door, which Ulquiorra, being Mr. Perfect, went to answer.

Standing in the door was a very annoyed apartment tenant, who claimed he could hear us at the very far end of the hallway, and was sure everyone else in the building could, too. Ulquiorra told him to run for his life, because he had an M-16 under the sofa. The tenant left very quickly.

Ulquiorra ignored my laughing at the tenant, and instead went to the kitchen.

"What do you want for dinner?" He asked, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Huh?"

"Someone must have filled up the refrigerator for us while we were out shopping earlier. What do you want for dinner?"

I came over to see what was in the fridge. "A sandwich sounds good to me," I said, and grabbed the bread and the peanut butter.

"A sandwich is NOT dinner food, Grimmjow." Ulquiorra stated. "Put those away."

"A sandwich is SO fucking dinner food. I'll eat whatever I want, and you can't stop me."

"I am fourth Espada and you are sixth. I can tell you to do whatever I want, Grimmjow." Ulquiorra stepped forward and attempted to grab the peanut butter, but, being much taller than him, I held the jar at least two feet over Ulquiorra's head. Ulquiorra looked at me, then the peanut butter, and then back at me. "So that's how it is."

"Yep. That's how it is, Emocar." And with that, I stuck the peanut butter jar out of Ulquiorra's reach on top of the refrigerator. "I'll have a cheese sandwich instead."

As soon as I turned around, Ulquiorra climbed up onto the counter and tried to grab the peanut butter. He of course fell off as soon as I saw him, because I shouted at him and grabbed his leg to pull him down. The fact that he wasn't wearing shoes (we agreed no shoes on the carpet) and his black emo jeans were extremely baggy, he slipped backwards and landed on me AGAIN. Only this time, (Prepare for abuse of the CAPS lock) we landed FUCKING FACING EACH OTHER, WHICH MADE IT LOOK LIKE WE WERE KISSING WHEN FUCKING AIZEN CAME IN!!

In case you were wondering how Aizen got in, I think he has a spare key to each of our rooms. Otherwise, don't ask me.

"Hello, boys. Uh, what are you up to…?" Aizen raised an eyebrow speculatively at us, and Ulquiorra turned redder than a tomato and looked like he might keel over at any second. It would certainly be an improvement.

"A-a-absolutely NOTHING, Aizen-sama. I just tripped and fell over, and I happened to run into Grimmjow on the way down." Little bastard, acting like a goody-two-shoes for Aizen. I hate it when he does that.

"Well, I certainly hope so. If anything had been going on in here between you two… I would hate to think of the consequences for the both of you. Anyway, I just wanted to check in with you, see how you're doing and such. You both seem to have accustomed to the living world quite well. I'll be seeing you every Sunday for dinner in my kitchen, alright?" And he was gone. Good fucking riddance, I thought.

Ulquiorra looked particularly confused. "What do you think he meant by 'consequences for the both of us'? He was acting as if, supposedly we HAD been doing something along the lines of which he first assumed, that he would not be particularly happy with us…"

"The hell do ya mean by that?"

"If we were kissing, he'd have killed us, in language that you'd understand." Ulquiorra said bluntly. "My suspicion is that Aizen's a homophobe."

"I thought he liked Ichimaru."

"No, Gin likes HIM. This could get bad."

The plot thickens. What if we HAD been kissing? That image passed through my head briefly, and on the outside I shuddered, but on the inside, my common sense was arguing with my brain. It said something along the lines of: 'Ooh, what if it HAD happened, eh? What would you have done then? You'd have liked it, I just know it!' and my brain hit my common sense in the balls.

"So? That wasn't proof. We need proof. DUH."

"For once you said something intelligent, Grimmjow."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP."

* * *

Well, here we are. I assume that at least some of you are confused. I wrote it, and I'm confused. It gets stranger, no need to worry. I'll explain as best as I can in later chapters.

Review if you want, but I won't force you to.


	2. More Than One Wakeup Call

Hello hello! Chapter 2!

Yay, more madness! And the plot actually thickens a bit, wow!

If you forgot from last chapter, Yaoi warning!

I don't own any of the characters. Or the movies mentioned.

* * *

Chapter 2; or More Than One Wake Up Call

Usually, I wake up really late. Late being around two in the afternoon. If anyone wakes me up before this, however, my mood pretty much explodes and kicks the shit out of whoever dared to disturb me.

Needless to say, I was DEFINETELY NOT FUCKING HAPPY when Ulquiorra came in my room and poured cold water on my head at six-thirty in the fucking morning.

"What the fucking hell, Ulquiorra?!"

"Grimmjow, where is the shower?"

I stopped. That certainly woke me up. As of yesterday, I had been under the impression that each of us had a bathroom and a shower attached to our rooms. Extremely unfortunately, I had been very, very wrong.

"Fuck, you mean that the only fucking shower is in MY room?" I stared incredulously at the bathroom door. I had spray-painted 'Do not fucking enter' on it yesterday.

"It appears that way." Ulquiorra's voice was completely passive, as if there were nothing wrong in the world at all. "Grimmjow, don't come in, you cretin. I'm going to go take a shower. If you so much as knock on the door, I'll kill you."

That's quite a lovely way to wake up, don't ya think?

...

After figuring out how to use the computer, I spent about an hour on YouTube. It took me a while to realize that Ulquiorra had yet to come out of the shower. "What the fuck is he doing in th- scratch that, I don't wanna know," I muttered to myself. A few minutes later, Ulquiorra came out of the shower, already dressed (I didn't even see him take his clothes in with him!), and his hair was soaking wet and he looked a lot like L from Death Note, except much, much hotter- DID I JUST FUCKING THINK THAT?! Something must be wrong with my brain. I need food.

"Breakfast," I growled, and stalked into the kitchen, while Ulquiorra began looking frantically for a hairdryer. I opened the fridge, and decided not to wonder why it was stocked full of American foods only (Aizen's on some weird American diet, and only eats what it tells him to, but I don't really get why the hell we have to eat it too), and pulled out a box of frozen waffles. The instructions were in a foreign language, of course. "Hey, Ulquiorra, can you read American?"

Ulquiorra looked at me weird. "What on earth do you mean by that? And have you seen a hairdryer anywhere around here? I left it on the counter earlier." He ran around the room, searching frantically for the hairdryer that he currently had in his hand. I wasn't in the mood to tell him this; It was too funny just watching him. Eventually, of course, he realized that he already had the hairdryer, and plugged it into the wall in the kitchen.

"What the hell are you doing, drying your hair in here, eh?!" I shouted at him. "I want toast, and you just unplugged the fucking toaster so you could use your hairdryer?! What the hell's wrong with you?!"

Ulquiorra ignored what I shouted at him, and blew the hairdryer in my face instead. "That's nice. Put your toast in the oven or something, sexta."

I don't think Ulquiorra expected me to take him up on that suggestion.

The fire alarm went off.

Ulquiorra threw the toaster at me and called me a moron.

You can see why I'm not a morning person, can't ya?

...

Once we had both finished breakfast, I had gotten dressed, and Ulquiorra had cleaned the incredibly burnt toast out of the oven, he cornered me and shoved a DVD in my face.

"The hell is that for?" I asked.

"We are going to put this in Aizen-sama's room, somewhere where he'll find it. We need proof to back up what happened last night."

Last night…? Oh, yeah. Aizen's homophobic freakout. "So… how are we gonna find out anything? Are we gonna spy on him?"

Ulquiorra nodded. "Gin already hid a camera in his kitchen. I convinced him it was for blackmail purposes. Then we put this DVD in view of the camera, and catch his reaction. Get it?"

"Yeah, but what the hell's with the DVD?"

"You'll see."

...

Aizen left around nine in the morning to go to America (he was out of peanut butter already). Ulquiorra and I took this chance to leave the aforementioned DVD on his counter, within view of the camera Gin had hidden. On the way to Aizen's room, the fourth Espada had taken it upon himself to explain what the DVD was.

Of course, it was a tape full of Yaoi material. I should have been able to guess.

I shouldn't have made the mistake of asking him where he got it.

He punched me.

...

Back in our living space, after we had put the DVD in Aizen's room, I decided to figure out how to use our new computer. I had just accessed the internet, when Ulquiorra shouted for me to come down the hall and see something.

"What the fuck do you want with me?! You already made my morning hell, what else could you possibly want from me?!"

"What's behind this door?" Ulquiorra called down the hall at me.

"That's the spare room, dumbass!"

"No, the other one."

"Uh, that's YOUR room, dumbfuck!" I was getting annoyed here.

"There's a third door now."

If any of you say 'curiosity killed the cat', I'll stuff you in the blender.

Ulquiorra stood at the very end of the hall, past both other doors. There was a brand-new looking door in the wall. Probably a closet, but it definitely wasn't there yesterday.

"What the fuck is with this apartment?" I shouted. Then the doorknob twisted.

The door opened, and Ulquiorra and I found ourselves staring at Szayel Aporro Grantz, who looked just as flustered as I felt.

"See," Gin called, "I told ya that that door went straight to Ulqui and Grimmy's room!"

"You installed this door, Ichimaru?" Ulquiorra asked.

"Yeah! Aizen-sama had me put doors between each of the rooms! There's one on the other side of our room that goes to Aizen-sama's room, and then there's doors off of his room that go to Nnoitra and Stark's room, and to Tousen's room, and Barragan's, and then one to Nel and Halibel's room, but as soon as they found out, they dead-bolted it shut from the other side." Gin looked very proud of himself.

"What the fuck? Are you even allowed to do that?! You don't fucking own the building, Gin!"

Gin kept grinning. "So what? I can do whatever I wanna."

"Whatever. Why do we need fuckin' doors anyway?!"

"Oh, 'cuz Aizen-sama wants us to be able to hang out with each other. Also, he wants us to come have dinner with 'im every Saturday." Gin smiled even more creepily. "O' course, you can lock the door, ya know. Anyway, seeya guys later at dinner!" Gin reached over Szayel's shoulder, waved, then closed the door.

Ulquiorra and I stood there for a second, then walked in unison to the kitchen, and then we both said: "Was Szayel blushing?!" Except I added a few 'what the fuck's in there.

...

The day passed quickly, once I figured out how internet worked. YouTube was pretty fucking awesome. I got to watch all sorts of weird, funny stuff that made fun of American political figureheads.

And then it was time for dinner.

Ulquiorra and I took a shortcut through Szayel and Gin's room, and wound up in Aizen's kitchen, where there was an enormous table set up. Ulquiorra tapped my shoulder, and pointed to where he had left the DVD. It was gone.

Aizen left the room to go knock on Nel and Halibel's door and let them know it was time to eat, and Ulquiorra grabbed the camera from its hiding place.

Dinner was incredibly fucking boring. I was jumpy and impatient, waiting to find out what was on the secret videotape. I was more bored than impatient though, and I ended up starting a mini food-fight between me and Nnoitra and Gin. It ended when someone accidentally hit Aizen in the face with a sushi roll. The three of us cleared our plates and left the table as fast as possible.

...

Back in our room, Ulquiorra put the camera's memory card into the computer and downloaded the video.

"So what is it?" I asked.

"How should I know? I haven't even started watching it yet." Ulquiorra clicked the play button, and we both crowded around the screen to see.

What we saw only proved our suspicions.

Aizen walked on-screen and proceeded to put away all manner of strange American foods. Once he was done (about ten fucking agonizingly boring minutes) he FINALLY noticed the DVD. Aizen picked up the box, looked at the front, read the back, glared hard at the box and muttered, "Whoever left this… monstrosity… in my kitchen, they probably will not be getting it back. Then Aizen took the disk out of the box, took a lighter out of a drawer in the kitchen, walked over to the trash can, and began melting the disk into an indiscernible shape. Once the DVD had been melted beyond recognition, Aizen dropped it in the trash, took out his Zanpaku-to, and cut up the box, which he then dropped into the garbage as well. He glared at it for a while, and then turned around and started peeling an apple.

Ulquiorra paused the video. Dead silence.

"…How should we go about telling Gin that Aizen will not take his confession of love very well?" Ulquiorra finally asked.

"How the hell should I know?!" I was a little shaken up by what I saw. Aizen was trying to take over Soul Society to make the world a better place and have everyone be happy, right? So what the hell would he do about all the gay people then? You can't rule the world and say, "Oh, but you guys aren't allowed to exist, technically, because I'm a homophobe and I don't like you," right?!

"Grimmjow…?" Ulquiorra said weakly.

"Huh?"

"If that's what he did to a DVD… What on earth will he do to Gin?!"

I didn't want to answer that one.

Ulquiorra and I decided it would be best to get this whole incident off our minds before we tried to go to sleep, so we borrowed a horror movie from Stark (He keeps 'em around to threaten Nnoitra with; Nnoitra's terrified of stuff like Saw 3, or even Terminator keeps him up at night, waiting for severed limbs and robots to come through his window and kill him).

THE single most boring movie ever. It wasn't even scary. I even forgot the title. Needless to say, both of us fell asleep on the sofa, me sleeping sitting up, with my head tilted forward, and Ulquiorra with his head in my lap. We only found this out later, when the fire alarm ran out of batteries in the middle of the night and scared us both out of our fucking minds, thinking that aliens were coming out of the movie to kill us (yep, we watched an alien abduction movie). Neither of us really wanted to do anything about new batteries at one in the morning, much less actually get up (because we're TIRED, dammit! Neither of us are enjoying this!), so I shot a Cero at it and decided to make Ulquiorra clean it up in the morning.

* * *

Well, there you have it! Thanks for reading, everyone! I'll try not to get any computer priveleges revoked this week; it'll make typing go faster.

Review if you want, but I won't kill you if you don't. :D


	3. Everyone Versus Aizen the Homophobe

Hooray for strange chapter titles.

Sorry I haven't updated in a while; I've been up to my ears in high school applications (NOT FUN).

I think I forgot the disclaimer in previous chapters... so: I don't own Bleach, Ikea, or in this chapter, a whole bunch of video games and cheetos.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 3; or Everyone versus Aizen the homophobe, in a sense

I woke up first. That was unusual. It was seven in the morning. Maybe this is becoming a pattern. Fuck, I hope not. Anyway, I shoved Ulquiorra off the sofa and got up to make myself breakfast. The only food in the fridge remained weird American stuff.

Okay, Grimmjow's sandwich theory. I figure sandwiches are kind of like Onigiri rice balls. You can put pretty much anything in 'em and they taste fine.

So I figured, I like peanut butter, and I like cheese, and I like turkey and cheese, so why not combine all three?

It actually tasted pretty good. Ulquiorra made this really weird face when he saw what I was eating, and asked me if I was sane or not. He then made himself instant ramen for breakfast.

"You're the one who's insane! Who the hell eats instant ramen for breakfast?"

"I do."

And that was that.

...

Around nine in the morning, Szayel barged into our room, wearing a particularly…unique outfit. He had on black jeans, a pink shirt, a lab coat, and goggles around his neck. It was incredibly hard not to laugh at him.

"Szayel, what on-"

"What the fuck are ya wearing?!" I interrupted.

"I LIKE this outfit! Gin says I look good!" Szayel giggled. Ulquiorra and I looked at each other.

"So, what the hell are ya doing here anyway?" I asked.

"Gin wants to know if you want to come over and play a video game…" Szayel looked away when he said Gin's name, but both of us still saw him blushing.

Or I would have, if my brain hadn't been clouded by one thought at the moment: VIDEO GAMES.

"C'mon, Ulquiorra!" I shouted and grabbed the fourth Espada by the sleeve of his shirt and tried to drag him toward the door of Szayel and Gin's room.

"What for?!" Ulquiorra resisted, and looked completely flustered.

"Wait, Szayel! Do you guys have Halo 3?"

"I think so."

"Why does it matter, Grimmjow?!"

I turned and stared straight at him. "Ulquiorra. VIDEO GAMES." And I proceeded to drag him into the other apartment.

...

Gin won the first three rounds, and then we kinda gave up on trying to beat him AND each other, and Ulquiorra and I teamed up against him. Szayel took this as offensive, and sided with Gin.

We still lost, despite the fact that Szayel had never touched a video game controller before in his life. Gin did most of the fighting.

"Can we please play something else now?" Ulquiorra asked.

"Something a bit easier?" Szayel added. "Not that killing each other with human weapons isn't fun, but…" Szayel picked up a different game box.

"Oh no. FUCK no, Szayel. I fucking refuse. We are NOT playing-"

Gin and I teamed up for Mario Party 8, and reluctantly beat the pants off of Szayel and Ulquiorra, despite the fact that this was, along with MySims, Animal Crossing, and Nintendogs, one of the fucking sissiest games in the universe.

After the video game tournament was over (we decided to stop after I beat all three of them at Star Wars Battlefront six times in a row), Ulquiorra and I went back to our room. We walked silently to the kitchen, and then both of us looked at each other and burst out laughing. I never actually saw Ulquiorra laugh, and I gotta say he actually looked cute. ...Forget I ever said that, and I won't have to murder you later.

A few minutes later, once we'd both (sort of) caught our breath, Ulquiorra asked me, "Did you get the impression from Szayel Aporro that he's potentially in love with Gin?"

"Hah! Potentially? Gimmie a break! He's fallen so far, he can't even see the top of the pit he fucking fell into! He's pretty obvious, isn't he? I'm surprised Gin hasn't noticed!"

"He may have; We just don't know yet."

"Huh." I walked over to the fridge and pulled out a soda. God, Aizen even gets American SODAS. That's a little obsessive.

"Wait, Grimmjow." I turned to listen. "If Szayel likes Gin, and we can get Gin to like him back, then we don't need to worry about Aizen-sama finding out that Gin's gay, much less that he was ever going to ask him out!"

I stared. "Whaddaya mean?! How the hell are we supposed to do that?! We aren't fucking matchmakers!"

"It's easy… Okay, it's not easy. We need to ask a professional about this."

"A professional WHAT, exactly, dumbass?!"

...

"You want us to help you with WHAT?" Halibel and Nel stared at us incredulously. I'll admit the way Ulquiorra asked them was hella weird; it went something like this: "Hello, ladies. We're interested in acquiring your help as to improve the situation of a gay man so he does not end up with a non-gay man, and instead falls in love with another gay man, all within the direct access of this apartment building."

I woulda been hella confused if I didn't know what we were asking already.

Ulquiorra cleared his throat. "What I mean is, will you help us get Szayel and Gin together so that Gin doesn't get in big trouble with Aizen-sama?"

"That makes much more sense," Nel said, "But why would he be in trouble with Aizen-Sama?"

I explained the video tape.

"Forget it," Halibel said, walking back into the girls' room. "I've got better things to do than play cupid for a couple of my comrades."

Nel watched her leave, then turned back to us, looking like she wanted to apologize. "I really wish I could help…" She looked down. "I can give you an idea or two, though."

Ulquiorra nodded. "An idea would help a lot. Thank you, Neliel."

Nel grinned. "Okay, so… whenever a thing like this happens in doujinshi..." Oh, fuck no. She didn't just say that. "… It usually happens at high school."

Ulquiorra twitched.

"DOU-FUCKING-JINSHI?!" I shouted. "HIGH SCHOOL?! What the hell do you think we are?! We are violent killing machines with no emotions, created out of the malevolent souls of dead people who never went to Seretei! We are NOT FUCKING HIGH SCHOOLERS!!"

Nel took a step back. "Uh… the only reason I suggested that was…uh…"

"Why?" Ulquiorra took Nel's hand. "You can tell us. We won't laugh, and we certainly won't tell if it's a secret." I gaped. Ulquiorra was an unusually good actor. How the hell he could remain completely fucking emotionless all day, and then act like he just walked out of a Shoujo manga? Damn incomprehensible bastard.

"Uh… I think I overheard Aizen-sama talking to Tousen about sending a few of us to Karakura high school to find and kill Kurosaki Ichigo…"

The only thing I heard was this: Aizen wants to send us to fucking high school.

Ulquiorra and I left quickly with our information.

...

"High school." Ulquiorra was sitting on the sofa, passing the TV remote from one hand to another. "High school," He repeated, his voice cracking.

"Don't remind me," I growled from the kitchen. "By the way, how did you do that creepy bishie acting thing? You reminded me of Gin when he's trying to get his way."

"I don't know. Maybe I was an actor before I died. ….Hiiiiiiiiigh schooooooooool….."Ulquiorra whined.

I hit him upside the head with an empty milk carton. "So that's how you act so completely emotionless every day." I tossed the milk carton at the garbage can. It overshot and landed in the sink. I'd pick it up later, I decided. "Oi, the high school thing's just a rumor, y'know. Damn, I hope so."

"High school….. Oh, god. I have bad memories from high school…" Ulquiorra shivered. I reached over to put a hand on his shoulder, and then pulled back, wondering what the hell just came over me. Instead I grabbed the remote control from him and turned on the TV.

"Really now? What about?" Ulquiorra's past? Dare I say it, BLACKMAIL? Yes, please. And yes, I did just say please.

"None of your business, Sexta." That figures.

"Hmph. I betcha people picked on you all the time for being an emo." Ulquiorra flinched.

"I am not, and never was, an emo." Ulquiorra got up and walked swiftly down the hall to his room, and shut the door.

"You're gonna tell me eventually! I'll get it outta you, one fucking way or another!" I stalked back to my own room and, in turn, slammed my own door.

...

Someone knocked on my door around two in the afternoon. I barely heard it over the incredibly loud death metal music I was playing. I probably blew my eardrums out hours ago. After whoever was knocking had been knocking repeatedly for a minute and a half, and disrupted the beat of the song that was playing, I finally gave up, turned down the music, walked over to the door, opened it without caring who was there, and screamed "FUCK OFF BEFORE I KILL YOU!" and was about to slam the door, except someone caught it, and came into my room before I could do anything about them.

"Hey! What the fuck is your deal? Get outta my room!" The radio station changed, and I turned around just in time to see Ulquiorra walking over to sit on my bed. "Get off!" I tried to shove him off, but he ducked. "Bastard. Get outta my room!"

"No thank you." Ulquiorra glared at me. "Do you think I'd be anywhere near you if I had the choice otherwise? I was just going to tell you that Stark needs help with something, and is pretty much pulling his hair out on the living room sofa."

"Ew. What's he need? Does he have fucking insomnia or something?"

"No, actually. That's what I asked as well. He needs help with Nnoitra."

"What, does Stark think he's bringing home whores or something?" I snickered at the thought, and then shivered, because it seemed plausible, considering Nnoitra was involved.

"Not quite." Ulquiorra looked at the door, as if to make sure Stark wasn't listening in. "Stark wants our help getting a date."

"OH, FUCK NO! I'm already barely hanging onto this idea of Gin and Szayel! What are we, a fucking dating service?!" I punched the wall, forgetting that I was still in a gigai AN: if you don't remember this, you have short-term memory and need to re-read chapter 1, and it actually hurt. I glared at Ulquiorra, who I think stifled a laugh.

"I already told him we would help."

"WHY?!" I think they heard me shout all the way in Mexico.

"One, to annoy you. Two, if our comrades are all lovesick, it'll be much harder to engage in battle against Seretei. And three, it provides a distraction from boredom in the human world. It appears that the longer we stay here, the more we regain our emotions and feelings that we lost as hollows. It's interesting to watch." Regrettably, Ulquiorra had some pretty good points. Lovesick comrades would be seriously fucking annoying.

"But WHY US?!" I gave Ulquiorra the evil eye.

"Because…" Ulquiorra was, unusually at a loss for words. "…I don't actually know. We'll have to look into that one."

"Whaddaya mean 'we'?"

"You asked; you help find out."

Dammit, I hate it when he's right.

...

"Okay, Stark. This is how it's gonna work." I reluctantly sat down on the sofa next to Stark, pulled out a notebook, and kicked him to wake him up.

"Uh… I don't feel safe with you interfering in my love life." Stark scooted away from me. Bastard.

"Dumbass. It was Emocar's idea. We're gonna put a notice in the fucking paper. Describe the type of girl you're lookin' for, and we'll put one of those 'Desperate guy seeking whatever kinda person you describe." I wasn't having fun with this.

"Um, you said girl." Stark pointed out.

"And…?"

"I never said I was only interested in girls." I felt my brain implode. Stark's bisexual. IS EVERYONE BUT FUCKING AIZEN SOME FORM OF GAY?! Considering my luck, probably.

"Okay. Describe the boy/girl of your dreams in the manner of those relationship-seeking ads."

Stark nodded. "Uh… Lazy guy seeking boyfriend or girlfriend who doesn't like doing a lot of stuff that requires energy…" I love how he calls himself lazy like he's aware that he sleeps 20 hours a day. "Must not like violence or fighting, and must like cheetos."

"What?"

"What's wrong with cheetos?! Anyway, here's my room number to stick on there…" Stark yawned. "I'm going to bed." He started for the door.

"Seeya, lazy-ass." I handed the notebook to Ulquiorra. "Here's the info. Put it in the paper."

Ulquiorra read through the description. "… Stark is bisexual."

"Yes." I stared at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"…Never mind." Ulquiorra walked over to the computer. "I wonder what kind of admirers Stark will receive calls from..."

...

I spent the next half hour laughing at Ulquiorra as he tried to set up a Gmail account with which to email Stark's request to the local paper. Then, once he had it up and running, it took him another fifteen minutes to figure out how to open a new email. Then five more minutes to find the 'send' button once he was done typing, after which, he looked at me and said "Now it's your turn, Sexta. Set up an email account on this infernal thing. I'd like to see you try to accomplish it."

"How hard could that damn thing be?" Ten minutes figuring out how to type, forty-five to set it up after, and five minutes to send Ulquiorra his first ever hate-mail email.

* * *

Well. The crack pairings have revealed themselves (Somewhat. I still don't know who to pair Stark up with. Suggestions are helpful, if you have one) !

I love writing romantic comedy stories... but they get a little crazy sometimes. Am I the only one who thinks Stark is a little out of character here (then again, we have yet to see very much of him in the manga, so...)?

Review if you want, but I won't murder you if you don't. :)


	4. Expecting the Unexpected

That was an unusually fast update... But school opened late because of snow, so I actually had time to type!

I accidentally left something unresolved last chapter, so I fixed that here. It's a little shorter than usual...

Either way, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 4; or Expecting the unexpected makes the unexpected the expected…

"Hey, Ulquiorra. Didn't you say Stark's problem was something to do with Nnoitra? What the hell happened to that?" I asked confusedly. I was sitting on the counter eating dinner. Ulquiorra was leaning against the refrigerator (we don't actually have a kitchen table). Dinner tonight consisted of instant ramen, coca-cola, and packaged sushi, which Ulquiorra had gone out to get because we were both sick of American food by now.

"Stark didn't tell you about that?" Ulquiorra answered with a question.

"No. Tell me about what?"

"Nnoitra… He thinks Nnoitra's in love with him, and he doesn't know how the fifth Espada will take it if he starts dating." Ulquiorra ate a sushi roll. "Also, he needs our help with our 'extreme video camera skillz,' as he puts it."

"What with? Does he need us to find out if Nnoitra's like, watching him sleep or something?"

"Actually, sort of." I spit coke across the room. Ulquiorra wiped it off his face, glared at me, and continued. "He thinks Nnoitra's been watching him sleep, at least."

"At fucking least?! So what the hell's the 'at most' then?!"

"He thinks Nnoitra wants to molest him."

"Oh, thanks, Ulquiorra." I said sarcastically.

"What?"

"You just made me lose my appetite." I dropped my plate in the sink next to me, downed the rest of my soda, and asked, "So Stark wants us to videotape Nnoitra watching him sleep? That's quite the oxymoron."

"It is, isn't it?" Ulquiorra picked up the video camera from next to the computer, and put a blank tape in it. "Anyway, Stark's expecting us with the camera any minute. Nnoitra shouldn't be there. Are you coming?"

I nodded. "Whatever. It relieves boredom."

...

We decided to enter the room from the outside, because apparently Nnoitra was having a video game tournament against Gin, and the only way to Stark's room from the inside was through Gin's room. When we got to Stark's room, the door was barred from the outside with all manner of heavy objects, including a sofa, an old television, and an anvil. Stark was trying to be calm in the face of danger, but we could hear his voice cracking from here.

"I SAW YOU LEAVE! I SAW YOU GO TO ULQUIORRA'S ROOM! WHAT WERE YOU DOING THERE?!" Nnoitra screamed.

"I was visiting…" Stark's voice cracked horribly. "Dammit, why won't the door open?"

"Get back here," Nnoitra hissed. Damn, that guy is creepy. I looked over at Ulquiorra, who was quietly removing the furniture from the outside of the door.

Stark started shouting. Neither of us could tell what he was saying for the most part, but I was pretty sure I heard "Give me back my shirt, dammit!" come outta there…

The two of us outside managed to remove the furniture from the outside of the door, and Ulquiorra pulled out a library card to pick the lock.

"How'd you do that?" I asked.

"Practice."

I shoved the door open, and… remember how I lost my appetite at the thought of Nnoitra molesting Stark? Let's just say I woulda spit my dinner back up right here if I hadn't been so startled as to scream "WHAT THE FLYING SHIT IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

Nnoitra had Stark pushed up against the wall. I never realized that they were about the same height. Stark wasn't wearing a shirt (I WAS right, then), and Nnoitra was trying to kiss him. Stark was pushing Nnoitra's head away, and both of them were staring us. Ulquiorra put the camera down, and muttered something about not needing it any more.

"Oh, THANK GOD you guys showed up!" Stark shouted, looking more energetic (and more freaked out) than I'd ever seen him. "Help me-" He started to say something else, but Nnoitra noticed his guard was down, and… you can guess the rest from the context of the scene. Ulquiorra facepalmed, and my jaw dropped three feet. Stark shoved Nnoitra off of him, and put his shirt back on.

"I hope to never see something like that ever again," Ulquiorra deadpanned. "Stark, are you alright?" Stark nodded. "Good. Maybe we can convince someone to switch roommates with you."

"Yeah…" Stark nodded weakly again. "Maybe Tousen'll switch with me… then I won't have to share a room with anyone…"

"Like hell Tousen would give up his own room, but you can try." An idea popped into my head. "Hey, can I beat the shit outta Nnoitra for you?" I grinned.

"Eh, no. Don't do that," Stark said.

"Why the fuck not?! The bastard prob'ly woulda tried to rape you if we hadn't shown up! Be grateful that I wanna beat the living daylights outta him for you!" Besides, it'll be fun, I added to myself.

"Nah, I'm too tired to do anything right now… We can work all the roommate stuff out in the morning, 'kay?" Stark yawned. Again. "Hey, can I crash at your guys' room for tonight?"

And so, Stark ended up sleeping in Ulquiorra's bed. Ulquiorra and I sat up watching Jeopardy for another hour after he unceremoniously crashed. We competed with trying to figure out the answers before the contestants (and each other). He won.

...

I went to bed around eleven, which was really early for me. Ulquiorra got up and stopped me as I tried to leave. "Wait," he said. "Where on earth am I supposed to sleep?"

I pointed to the sofa.

"Nice try."

"Where the hell do you intend to sleep then?!"

Ulquiorra ignored me, and walked into my room.

"Hey, bastard! Get outta there! That's my room!" Ignored yet again. Ulquiorra lay down on my bed. I glared daggers at him. "GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY BED."

"No thank you. It's actually quite comfortable."

I practically blew a fuse. "WELL. At LEAST sleep on your OWN SIDE, thank you very much!!" Ulquiorra nodded and rolled over to one side. "THANK YOU." I decided against changing, due to the fact that it takes the emocar at least an hour to fall asleep (NO, I do NOT watch him on the Hueco Mundo security cameras when I'm bored!), and instead just fell over on the other side of the bed.

"Night, bastard," I mumbled, and then fell asleep.

...

Morning came at a more normal time for me (around ten in the morning), but it came with two very annoying things. The first was the lesser of the two annoyings. Stark woke me up by knocking on the door and saying this: "Grimmjow? Grimmjow, it's late. Can I borrow something from your fridge? I'd like breakfast. Grimmjow? I'm coming in…" And proceeding to do just that.

Here's the second annoying: Stark's reaction, and my realization. Stark's reaction was sorta like this: "Woah, hang on! I didn't know you two were in love, much less that either of you were gay! Congrats!" And my realization: Ulquiorra and I had somehow ended up in each other's arms. Stupid bastard probably rolls around in his sleep.

"AAAAAAGH!!" I sat up immediately. "Damn you, Cuatro! Get the hell outta my bed! Make Stark his stupid breakfast! AND STOP FUCKING TOUCHING ME!!"

"You're blushing," Stark pointed out.

"SHUT. UP."

...

As soon as I got Ulquiorra outta my room, I locked the door, and the bathroom door, and took a shower. When I finished, my mood was a bit better (but only a bit), and I pulled my clothes on quickly and stared at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out why my brain was on a constant high lately. I figured Szayel the annoying scientist must be experimenting on me (it wouldn't be the first time). Or maybe it's Ulquiorra's fault. That seemed more plausible. I stopped. Was I really blushing back there?! Good god, that won't be forgotten soon.

I wandered into the kitchen, and took a loaf of bread out of the fridge (Ulquiorra thinks EVERY food object goes in the fridge, because he doesn't bother to look at whether or not it says 'Do not refrigerate' on it). I jammed about six pieces of toast into the toaster, and put the rest away.

"Good morning, Grimmjow," Ulquiorra said quietly. I turned around to look at him, and he looked away.

"What?" I'm confused. "What did I do now?!"

"Stark filled me in before he left. He's talking to Tousen about switching roommates."

"Filled you in- Oh. You're mad at me?"

"I thought you were mad at me."

"No. Mad that Stark's probably telling the whole fucking world, yes, and annoyed at you, yes, but I'm not gonna kill you." I feel weird. I feel WAY too fucking nice. Okay, Grimmjow! Think dying kittens! Think ripping off Nnoitra's head! Think Kurosaki Ichigo, dead, and you're roasting his ass on a rotisserie stick! Yes! Die, Kurosaki, DIE! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

"Grimmjow… You're laughing maniacally under your breath… are you feeling alright? You're acting really weird today." The toaster popped. I grabbed my toast and sat on the counter.

"Nah, I'm fine, actually." I stuffed an entire piece of toast in my mouth. Ulquiorra's eye twitched.

"Eat normally, please."

"Nah. Hey, when are we getting started on this whole GinXSzayel project we seem to have picked up? We should act fast."

Someone knocked on the door. Ulquiorra walked over and opened it, and in walked fucking Aizen Sousuke. This is just shaping up to be a wonderful morning, huh?

...

Aizen sat us both down on the sofa in his living room, along with Gin, Szayel, Nel, Halibel and Stark. He sat down in the chair about ten feet away, and stared at us.

"So, what're we doing here?" Nel asked excitedly.

"I believe there has been a rumor of attending high school going around lately." We nodded, mixed emotions boiling up. "Well, that rumor is about to be confirmed. You have been hand-selected by myself and Kaname to attend Karakura high school."

I think I just died and fell through the floor of Aizen's apartment, landed in hell, came back, and repeated the process over again. "H-h-HIGH SCHOOL?! FUCKING HIGH SCHOOL?! WHAT THE FUCK?!" That was me. Gin tilted his head sideways and grinned creepily. I could only imagine what he was thinking. Szayel was looking at Gin, and blushing. Apparently, he must have heard of Nel's Doujinshi love theory. Nel was ecstatic. Halibel was gaping. Stark was sleeping (lazy bastard). Ulquiorra was shivering and moaning, "Hiiiiiiiigh Schooooooooooooooool….." over and over again.

Aizen ignored us and continued. "Your goal is to destroy Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends. Now, there are a few rules I feel must be lay down. You are not allowed to fail out of school. You are not allowed to ditch school. You are not allowed to get yourselves expelled. And most of all, I do not want you distracted from your goal, so…" He looked at Nel. "You may not make friends with the enemy anymore." His gaze shifted to Stark. "You may not sleep in classes," Next was Halibel. "You may not draw unnecessary attention to your looks; please wear the uniform." Gin. "You may not pull pranks such as setting off the fire alarm." Ulquiorra. "You may not degrade the other students. Just because they annoy you, doesn't mean they are automatically 'trash'." Szayel. "You may not detonate or disintegrate anything, or experiment on other students." Me. "You may not kill innocents; we simply wish to be rid of Kurosaki and his friends." Then he looked back at all of us. "And the number one rule is: Do not, under any circumstance, fall in love. Especially not with one another!" Aizen glared at each of us in turn. I felt my blood run cold. "Here are your uniforms; school starts for you all tomorrow."

Tousen passed out the uniforms for Karakura high school. "You may want to shop for school supplies," He suggested as he left the room.

It was silent, and then…

"Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh Schooooooooooooooool….."

...

Ulquiorra, Szayel, Gin and I went out shopping for school stuff later that day.

We ended up at a local office supply store, where it occurred to me that it was Tuesday, and school usually doesn't start on days other than Monday, unless it were the beginning of a new semester. Which led me to the unfortunate realization, albeit ten seconds too late, that someone we recognize might see us there. Ten seconds later, Kurosaki Ichigo screamed bloody murder at us.

* * *

Lol. I just had to leave it on a cliffhanger here. Mostly because I have no clue what Ichigo's gonna do to them yet.

Review if you want, if you don't, you don't have to.

Thank you!


	5. Ichigo throws a fit

Aaah, Sorry this chapter is so short; my keyboard broke and it's hard to write with a drawing tablet... that also explains why it took so long too.

Either way, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter five, or; Ichigo has quite the temper.

Kurosaki Ichigo was holding a shopping basket full of school supplies. Behind him were the Orihime girl and a bunch of his other friends, most of which I assumed were Shinigami that had been sent to Karakura to wait for all us Arrancars to come wreak havoc.

Ichigo walked right up to me and screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! I THOUGHT YOU MUST HAVE DIED BACK IN HUECO MUNDO!"

I should explain what's going on. It's winter. After having to fight a whole bunch of Captains in a not-Karakura place, Aizen and Seretei both pulled back their troops. We discovered that, contrary to popular belief, Szayel and I weren't dead, and neither (unfortunately) was Nnoitra. Also, contrary to the bets that most people had been placing, Stark hadn't fallen asleep in battle, and Halibel hadn't 'accidentally' lost her shirt. Aizen waited a bit for us to get ourselves all together, and then had us pack up and shipped us out to Karakura.

Now you know what the deal is. Second semester is about to start, according to Nel (who, for whatever the hell her reasons may be, actually pays attention).

One of Ichigo's friends noticed us. I could tell by his reiatsu that he was a Quincy. A very fucking rude Quincy, judging by what he said next.

"What the hell?! Abarai, look! It's that freak, Szayel Aporro!"

The red-haired shinigami took notice, and in turn, screamed as well. "What the fuck? I thought Kurotsuchi-taichou killed him! What is he doing here?!" And then the others took notice. The Orihime girl hid behind Kurosaki and pointed at Ulquiorra and shivered. That was pretty funny. The others all looked straight at the guy leading this whole screwball expedition to the office supply store.

"Ichimaru Gin?!" This short-ass white-haired elementary schooler stomped straight up to Ichimaru and had just opened his mouth to shout at him, he got picked up, put down out of the way, and replaced by this lady with ENORMOUS boobs.

"Gin, what are you doing here? Get back to Seretei right now!" She glared at Gin as if her cleavage wasn't distracting him.

"Rangiku… I didn't know you'd be here! Ah…. Y'see, Aizen-sama had this real cool idea of us to move in here… We're school-shoppin, ya know…" The lady called Rangiku didn't even bat an eyelash.

"Nice try. Let me rephrase that. GIN, GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK TO SERETEI, OR I'LL DRAG YOU THERE BY YOUR EARS!"

"You guys are… shopping for school supplies," Kurosaki interrupted.

"What's it to ya?" I shot right back.

Kurosaki looked as if Armageddon had come early. "You guys… aren't going… to… You aren't… are you enrolled in Karakura High School, are you?!"

"Unfortunately, we are," Ulquiorra said. "You don't have a problem with that, do you, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Ichigo looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.

"N-no… Just don't try to kill us." I tried not to laugh at that. "Wait, why are you…"

"Aizen thought we needed an education," Ulquiorra said bluntly. One of these days, I'm gonna ask him how he comes up with all these excuses on the spot like that.

"You better not be in my class…" Ichigo growled. "WAIT A MINUTE? WHY AM I SITTING HERE TOLERATING THIS?!" Ichigo turned to face his friends. "Ishida! Is there any way you could hack the school's computer database and take them off the class list?!"

"I could just put us back on!" Szayel fired back.

"Damn… Rukia! Go beg the principal to kick them out! He actually listens to you!"

"What?! No way am I begging!" Rukia kicked Ichigo in the head. I've gotta ask her how she did that later.

"Even if they do, I'll just go back and re-convince him…" Gin said, grinning maniacally. Everyone backed away (Except of course, for Szayel).

Ichigo was at his boiling point. "Fine! Then we'll ask the teachers to make the tests all extra-extra-extra hard so you'll all fail outta school!"

"If the tests are so hard that I fail, won't YOU fail too, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Ulquiorra retorted. Ichigo was definitely beaten. He opened his mouth to say something a few times, but decided against it. Finally he stomped right up to me.

"It's ON, Jeagerjaques! If you do ANYTHING you'd regret in MY school, I'll kick your ass into next month."

"Fine then. It's on." I said right back.

It was on.

…What exactly was 'on', we weren't exactly sure, but we had a feeling it meant Ichigo and I kicking the crap outta each other at whatever chance we were given.

...

Ulquiorra busted my door open, and knocked the chair that had been holding it shut across the room. He walked over to my desk, ignoring me and my complaints completely, and placed a pile of school stuff, packed up and ready for the first day, on my desk. And on top of those, he placed the thing I'd been dreading. The SCHOOL UNIFORM.

"I ain't wearin' it," I said bluntly. "Go burn it or somethin'."

"Aizen-sama's orders," He replied.

"Screw that. I ain't fuckin' wearin' it."

"Aizen-sama will probably vaporize you."

"Can he even do that?"

Ulquiorra thought for a minute. "No, probably not," He decided, "But he'll probably do something of similar nature."

"Meh." I reached over and turned on the radio as loud as I could. You could hear Death Metal for miles. Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow.

"How, I wonder, do I put up with you?"

...

Since tomorrow was such a 'big day' for some of us, Aizen made everyone come to dinner in his room. Like always, he served American crap. Tonight was pizza. Now, I've had pizza before, but never with side dishes. Served alongside the cheesy, saucy, gooey mess that I'm sure Aizen tried to make himself, we were force-fed eggplant, asparagus, and all manner of nasty veggies. I'm not a big veggie person, can you tell?

Gin had the right idea here. The devious shinigami had brought a plastic bag to the table, and whenever Aizen wasn't looking, he'd shove some more vegetables off his plate and into the bag. I asked Szayel, who was sitting next to me, what he was up to, and he told me Gin planned on sticking the bag in Nnoitra's heating ducts (By the way, Stark is currently sharing living space with Tousen, because he had an extra room). It was really hard not to laugh, but the next time Aizen got up to get more milk out of the kitchen, I leaned across the table and gave Gin a high-five.

Nnoitra, who for some unfortunate reason was sitting next to Stark, kept scooting his chair closer to the aforementioned Primera Espada. Stark, in turn, kept scooting further away. He would have kept scooting further, too, but he ran into Halibel, who scooted her own chair further. Now all three of them were scooting further towards the end of the table. Next they ran into Ulquiorra, who, instead of scooting off the edge of the table, stood up, pulled his chair out, and let all three of them scoot past, and then sat back down and kept eating like nothing had happened. Halibel came back to the table, and Stark and Nnoitra ditched the chairs and started running around, Nnoitra trying to kiss poor Stark again, and Stark wishing he were anywhere else. Eventually, Stark tripped over Wonderwyce, the only non-Espada who had come to Karakura, and was currently living in Tousen's hall closet. Stark fell over, and Nnoitra grabbed him by the ankle and started dragging him away. I stood up and hit Nnoitra with my chair, and Stark immediately ran and cleared his plate, and then called "Excuse me!" as he was leaving, back to his and Tousen's room. Nnoitra just kinda lay there for a bit.

Aizen came back with the milk carton and wondered what had just happened.

...

Despite the fact that school was starting tomorrow, I stayed up past midnight watching horror movies. Around One o'clock, Ulquiorra came in and told me it was too loud in here, and he couldn't sleep, and promptly pulled the TV cord out of the wall. I yelled at him to plug it back in, but he ignore me, and I fell asleep leaning on the wall across from his bedroom door. I'd shout at him in the morning.

* * *

Well.

If anybody wants to, I'm taking suggestions for who Stark should attempt to go out with... Anybody works. It can be yaoi, het, whatever, so long as they aren't already in a potential pairing. And not Orihime, because, truth be told, I can't stand her ( Sorry, Orihime fans).

Review if you like, but I'm not forcing you.


	6. How to start school Espada Style

Gaah, sorry about the slow update; I've been drowning in high school applications that are due THIS WEEK *dies*

But I finished the chapter! Enjoy it!

* * *

Chapter Six; or How to Start School (The Espada Way)

...

"Grimmjow." I rolled over. I really didn't wanna wake up; I had a feeling it was way too early for my brain to be functioning.

"Grimmjow, wake up." Ignoring the moron trying to talk to me at this ungodly hour.

"Grimmjow, if you don't wake up, you're going to be late for school." Oh, right. Hell starts today. Even less of an incentive to wake up.

"You piece of trash, get out from in front of my room! I can't open my door, and I want breakfast, and you need to get ready for school, otherwise Aizen-sama will be very, very upset!" I sat up, looked around, and yanked Ulquiorra's door open for him. He fell over. This would have been reason for me to laugh and point at him, but he kinda fell on me, and pushed me over.

"Good fucking morning to you too, Ulquiorra. GET OFF!" Ulquiorra sorta sat there stunned for a minute. "Dammit, get offa me!!"

"Honestly, Grimmjow, I'm trying, but you appear to be holding onto me." I looked around and realized that I was, in fact, grabbing the front of his school uniform. I let go immediately, and he stood up. Then he held out his hand to me.

"What the hell?"

"I was trying to help you up, you idiot." I stared at him, and reluctantly grabbed his hand. Of course, it was early morning and neither of us realized that, being that I was much taller and physically larger than Ulquiorra, he would instead be pulled back over by me. Which resulted in something INCREDIBLY awkward, and I am really fucking glad that Aizen didn't walk in. Ulquiorra's about an inch from my face, and turning bright red as I speak. He nearly just kissed me! I'm surprised the world's not ending.

"Grimmjow…" He started. "Y-you're blushing."

"Speak for yourself… HEY! GET THE FUCK OFFA ME!!" I shoved him, and stood up. "I'm gonna go get my stupid uniform on…" I kinda ran for my room, and slammed the door when I got there.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD." I was sorta hyperventilating, and I could tell my heart was going faster than usual. 'What the fuck is wrong with me?! How come I haven't torn him limb from limb yet?!' My thoughts were going a mile a minute as I got my school uniform on, and tried to brush my hair. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, and ran to the kitchen to make breakfast, all the while wondering why the hell I was so worked up.

...

Gin and Szayel talked all the way to school. Halibel and Nel compared first-day hairstyles and other girly stuff. Stark looked around nervously, and Ulquiorra was completely silent and, for whatever reason, standing right next to me. I was trying not to scream at him for earlier when we got to school.

There was a crazy rush to see schedules, and I cringed when I realized we were in the same class. Me and Ulquiorra. Him and me. We're always getting stuck together! I re-looked at the schedules, and realized that I also had Nel and Stark in our class. Gin and Szayel were in class 2-a. We were in class 2-b, and Halibel was in 2-c (She seemed ecstatic to 'finally be free of all those loonies,' as she so kindly put it). We made our way to our first period class, and Kurosaki kicked me as I came in the door.

"What the fuck?!" I grabbed Kurosaki by the front of his shirt.

"Oops, sorry. I thought you were someone else."

"Who?" I turned around just as the red-haired shinigami from the other day walked in the door.

"Yo, Espada." He said.

"What's an Espada?" This girl with spiky black hair walked up and stared at me. "Is it some gang or something?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Stark said.

"Ah! Morning, Tatsuki!" The Orihime girl ran in the door and glomped the spiky-haired girl. Seconds later, the Orihime girl was grabbed by this other girl with reddish hair and glasses, who got down on one knee like she was about to propose, and she started to, too, but the Tatsuki girl stepped on her before she could finish.

"Is this normal, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Ulquiorra asked.

"Vaguely. It happens almost every day."

"This is going to take a while to get used to," Nel said. "By the way, where is the teacher?"

"Late, probably." Ichigo looked a little overwhelmed. Being on break from his nutty classmates obviously hadn't helped. Then again, it could just be because he has eight shinigami and seven Espada in his grade now. It was gonna be hella fun to mess with his head.

...

During free period (Sometime around fourth period), Ulquiorra and Stark holed up in the library to study with this shinigami kid named Hitsugaya, who forced these other two shinigami to study with him (I think their names are Ikkaku and Yumichika), and Nel made friends with the Rangiku lady and the Orihime girl really, really fast. Kurosaki and the red-haired shinigami (Whose name is apparently Renji), along with the Rukia girl and the Quincy (whose name currently vacates my head) and this tall guy called Chad, tried to figure out where we might be 'hiding' Aizen.

Szayel and I went to bail Gin out of detention.

...

If I never see Karakura high's detention hall again, it'll be too soon. The place is terrifying for a delinquent such as me. The whole place is crawling with teacher's assistants from the upper grades, sent here by the devil himself (the principal) to keep an eye on all the screwballs and class clowns that get sent down here. It's in the basement, next to the boiler room and the janitor's closet. Szayel and I stood about six stairs up and gaped at the place.

I stared incredulously. The place woulda driven me insane. I looked through the dusty window on the door, and saw kids writing lines on a blackboard. "Dude, what the hell did Gin do to get put in here?!"

Szayel turned bright red. "H-he… he… k-kinda…" Szayel looked away. "He shot a spitball straight into the teacher's cleavage."

I laughed really hard for a good five minutes.

"C-c'mon! We only have thirty minutes left before fifth period!" Szayel dragged me down the remainder of the stairs.

We looked through the window of detention hall, which looked like shit. Two kids were writing lines on the board; one set of lines said 'I will not throw paper airplanes in class,' in neat cursive. The other kid's lines said 'I will not throw other students in The Pit.' I really didn't wanna find out what The Pit was.

"There he is!" Szayel grinned. I saw Gin sitting at a table in the back, his feet resting on the desk, and flicking paper clips at the kid next to him.

"You know the drill." I said. Szayel nodded, and I hid behind a trash can down the hall. Szayel knocked calmly on the door.

"What is it?" asked the teacher's assistant who came to the door.

"The principal requests that all teacher's assistants working in detention hall come and check in with him immediately, as it is the start of the new semester and he would like to inform you all of some new rules."

"So who watches them?" The kid pointed over his shoulder into the room.

"I've been appointed temporary watch until you get back."

"You sure? You're a new kid, you shouldn't even be down here…"

"I have special permission."

The teacher's assistant looked around. "… Do we really get to leave here for a bit?"

"Of course! I promise you, nothing will go wrong. Now all of you hurry; the principal is waiting."

The teacher's assistant kid grinned widely. "Hey guys! We get a break! Come on!" All of them quickly vacated the basement.

"Coast's clear, Grimmjow." I left my hiding place, and followed Szayel into detention hall. When Gin saw us, he grinned even wider than usual, and tackle-glomped Szayel, who turned redder than… redder than most other shades of red, and it was hard to compare to other red things.

"Let's go already."

"Wait! Don't leave us here!" screamed the other kids as we left. Here's my role in all this: Szayel and Gin ran up the stairs and escaped, while I held the door shut against a small army of fucked-up kids from detention hall. It was pretty funny, watching them through the window of the door, screaming at me and pulling on the handle. Eventually, they gave up, and I ran up the stairs to regroup with the other two.

...

"You imbeciles did WHAT?!" Ulquiorra wasn't happy. "If Gin got sent to detention, there was probably good reason." He tried really hard to justify our wrongness. "You should take him back before we all get in trouble for it." And failed.

"Now, now," I patted his head condescendingly. "If Gin was in detention hall, our project from Nel couldn't work, now could it?" I whispered in his ear. He shivered and shoved me backwards, and stormed off, blushing.

"Dude, he likes ya," Gin elbowed me.

"SO?"

"Ya like him too, don'tcha?"

I flinched, and punched him. "What? Dude, I'm not gay." A likely story. I doubt it myself, and I'm the one who just said it! What the fuck is going on with me lately? DO I like Ulquiorra? Ha. Ha ha. It's more likely that I'd kiss a tarantula (those things are wicked nasty, dude).

"Really now, y' aren't?"

"I think I know what the hell I am."

"I think yer confused." Gin grinned at me in that creepy way only he can. I hate it when he thinks he knows more than me. I hate it even more when I secretly agree that he's right, too.

"How do you even know he likes me?!"

Gin cocked his head sideways. "Eh… Lucky guess."

I punched him again, and Szayel started shouting at me. The three of us walked down the hall shouting about injuring each other in various ways, and whether I was or was not actually gay.

...

After school, I sat on the kitchen counter trying to multiply polynomials by other polynomials.

"Hey, emocar! D'you know what to do with the math shit?"

"Do you really WANT me to help?" Ulquiorra looked over at me from the refrigerator. "We're out of everything but instant ramen, Grimmjow."

"We always are- Don't fucking change the subject! Help me with my fucking polynomials!"

Ulquiorra looked at my paper, and looked over at the textbook page with the original problem. "You copied it down wrong, trash. That's supposed to be an exponent, not an integer, you idiot," he said, pointing to my paper. "That explains where you're having trouble."

"Woah." I finished the problem quickly. "Er… Thanks, I guess."

"Just finish it; you'll have more tomorrow."

Stark came running in from the door to Gin and Szayel's room. "I got a call from someone who read the newspaper ad!!"

"That's great. Who is it?" Ulquiorra looked over, completely unfazed, from a boiling pot of instant ramen on the stove.

"Some girl from Seretei! I don't know her name, but she says if her captain finds out she's dating someone, he'll be jealous. I don't think she knows I'm an arrancar, though."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How do you know she's from Seretei? Is she one of the shinigami from school?" I asked.

"I don't think so," Stark shook his head. "But I could sense her spiritual pressure from over the phone." Ulquiorra and I looked at each other. "Anyway, she's making a special trip to the living world for me! When she gets here, we're gonna go on a date! Maybe she's the one for me, guys! By the way, can I crash here? I'm tired." Stark flopped over on our sofa.

"Your room's thirty fucking yards away! Get outta here!"

"Congratulations on your upcoming date, Stark." Ulquiorra showed him to the door, and handed me my ramen.

"If he could sense her spiritual pressure from over the phone, she must be fairly powerful," Ulquiorra said. "She's probably a vice-captain."

"That's bad, right?"

"It means she could find out where Aizen-sama is! We have to find out who this woman is, and if she's as strong as we think, we have to break them up."

"What for? They haven't even met yet! What's the fucking point?!"

"The point is, we can't let the shinigami know where we are! If she even finds out Stark is an arrancar, much less an Espada, we're done for."

"… I hadn't thought of that."

"Well, we're going to have to monitor their date. We'll be tagging along."

"What, spying? Cool!"

"… Wasn't my original plan of action, but that'll work too."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"Whaddaya mean 'Nothing'? I heard something!"

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did!"

"If you're hearing things, we should get your head checked out, Grimmjow."

"Shut up!"

...

I went to bed that night, thinking about this morning, and the afternoon, and all the crazier things to come once everything got rolling, and how it wouldn't stop once it all started.

Then I fell asleep, and had a really strange dream about boiling Nnoitra in a pot of instant ramen while Ulquiorra recited Shakespeare in the background.

* * *

Well. That was considerably fun to write (as well as a little random).

I'll give you a cookie if you can guess Stark's date :D

Review if you want, don't if you don't.


	7. Double Double Date Date

I AM SO SORRY. I can't believe it took me this long to update! I promise, I'm gonna get better at updating on time!

Either way, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

Chapter 7; Double Double Date Date

School was boring as hell, and I slept the first half of the day, and the second half, I skipped. I hope Aizen doesn't find out. As I was leaving during lunch hour, I saw Szayel staring at Gin from around the corner. I almost laughed, but then I thought of a better idea, and whistled instead. That kinda whistle that the guys do in American cartoons when they see a sexy girl. Gin turned around, saw Szayel, and waved. Szayel turned bright red and almost fell over. As soon as Gin turned away, the pink-haired idiot gave me the finger.

I spent most of the rest of the day inside, watching TV and E-mailing the other Espada at school, saying 'Guess where I am!' and driving them nuts (I finally got this internet thing down!) .

...

As soon as school let out, Ulquiorra halfway busted down the door and started shouting at me. Not like normal Ulquiorra shouting, actual shouting-shouting, like you-just-fucked-up-big-time-shouting.

"WHERE WERE YOU?!"

"When?" I grinned at him.

"DURING SCHOOL, YOU IMBECILE! I SKIPPED A CLASS LOOKING FOR YOU!"

"I skipped the entire second half of the day."

"I DON'T CARE! WE NEED TO TALK!"

"About what?"

Ulquiorra took a deep breath, and started talking normally. "About Stark's date tonight. Remember? We're spying on them."

"I thought you said we weren't spying."

"When did I say that? And precisely what did I say?"

"I forget."

"Stupid piece of trash."

"Are you talkin' to me, asshole?!"

"Either way, we have two options."

"You're not listening to me!"

"We can spy, like I suggested a moment ago, or…"

"Or?"

Ulquiorra blushed. "…This was suggested by Nel, just to let you know-"

"I don't care if you thought it up yourself or not! WHAT IS IT?"

"…………….We could double-date."

I think the world just exploded.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ASKING THAT FOR?!?!"

"Like I said, Nel suggested it. And if we're spying, Stark would sense our reiatsu, no matter how hard we try to hide it. He IS the first Espada, after all."

"You sound like you WANT to do this whole double-date thing."

"Not particularly, no."

"But you think we have to, don'tcha."

"Yes."

"SHIT." And then I had an epiphany. The only thing I learned in school earlier was the definition of the word epiphany: a good idea or realization out of the blue. I liked epiphanies. "Wait, don't we have to get Stark's permission to crash his first date?"

"Then let's." Ulquiorra grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the door.

...

Stark was no help toward my current… uh, situation… whatsoever. He thought it was great that Ulquiorra and I had, and I quote, "Finally figured out our screwed-up teenage hormones and fallen madly in love with each other", and he also said he "Absolutely doesn't mind that we're gay, and supports us wholeheartedly".

This whole epiphany thing wasn't working out so well.

Stark called his new girlfriend, and she thought the double-date was fine as well. Is EVERYONE against me today?! They decided on a café to meet at, and Stark loaded us into Aizen's car (Aizen has a car now, by the way. He decided walking was too tiresome, and makes Tousen drive him everywhere.) and headed off.

...

Stark's date was an interesting one, all right. She was about Ulquiorra's height, and wore a black dress that looked completely and utterly innocent. Like she was afraid to be sexy, or she was too… I don't know, nerdy, to wear anything more revealing. She reminded me instantly of a librarian. She even had the glasses and the weird bun to match. I did not like this girl.

The librarian girl walked right up to us. "You must be Stark-san," she said, shaking his hand. "My name is Ise Nanao. Very pleased to meet you. These two are your friends, I presume?" She talks a lot like Ulquiorra. Maybe she IS a librarian. Or a nerd.

We sat down at a table at the café and ordered drinks. Nanao and Stark talked about whatever was on their minds. Ulquiorra and I stared awkwardly at anything but each other. Eventually, he jabbed me with a stirring spoon, and pulled me across the table.

"Her reiatsu is at least vice-captain level," he whispered in my ear.

"Ooh, getting flirty over there?" Stark laughed, and I jumped back across the table and tried not to strangle Stark.

...

After we had finished our drinks, Stark and Nanao walked all the way to the park with Ulquiorra and I in tow, sat down on a park bench, and started (incredibly unexpectedly; maybe Nanao was drunk?) making out. Ulquiorra and I took this as a cue to leave, and leave quickly.

We ended up across the park, sitting on the swings like little kids.

"Well, today was…interesting, to say the least." Ulquiorra said finally.

"Hmph."

"Are you mad about something, Grimmjow?"

"NO DUH." I turned away from him.

"Is it because I dragged you out on a double-date?"

"Maybe. This was dumb, uneventful, embarrassing, and a complete waste of a perfectly good afternoon, and now the fucking sun is setting, and not a single thing happened that was worth coming outside for!"

"Sorry."

"Not your fault. Nel's, remember? This whole date thing was apparently her idea."

"No."

"Huh?"

"I made that up."

"What the hell? So it was your idea then?!"

"No. Not entirely. Mine and Szayel's."

"Huh?!"

"Oh, never mind. You appear to be mad at me, so it's probably safer if you just don't talk."

"You're confusing."

"Thank you…?"

"Life is too fucking confusing."

"It certainly is, but why do you say that?"

"You confuse me, Ulquiorra."

"…You didn't answer my question."

"I think I need therapy."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because no matter what the hell I do, you STILL confuse me!"

"Grimmjow, you aren't making any sense at all."

"You know what else doesn't make sense at all?"

"What?"

"Tonight's fucking math homework. Let's go home so you can help me with it."

"Grimmjow."

"What?"

"You're confusing."

...

Stark dropped Nanao off at the hotel she was staying at for the night, and ranted at us in the car about how amazing she was the second she was out of sight. We got to listen to him talk to himself the entire car ride home, talking about her. She called his cell phone about halfway through the ride, and told him never to call her again, and he complained about her the rest of the way.

...

"Dude, Gin. I need your help." I kicked Gin out of his chair in study hall. He wasn't studying. He was flirting with all the girls in the room, and peeking at Szayel out of the corner of his eye, watching the pink-haired weirdo get madder and madder.

"Ah, Grimmjow. How may I help ya?" he gave me that freaky grin of his.

"Don't fucking do that. I need help." The girls at Gin's table left, and I took one of their chairs.

"What's tha problem, Grimmy?"

I glared at the nickname. "Ulquiorra. That fucking bastard. Something's up."

"Ah, really? Do tell."

It was probably really dumb to ask Gin for advice, but I figured, 'what the hell? Couldn't hurt too much to ask.' "Whenever I see him, I feel all weird and…I dunno. Floaty? Shit, that sounds dumb." Gin laughed. I ignored him. "Also, whenever I go into a classroom, I look for him to see if he's there yet. And we keep getting shoved into awkward situations, and once I think I thought he was hot, and he told me I was blushing once, but he was blushing too-" I took a breath. "I'M FUCKING LOSING IT, GIN!!" I shook him back and forth as I said this.

Gin laughed again. "Losin' it? Naah. Yer in love, Grimmy!"

I stared at him for a good two minutes and let that idea sink in. Me, in love with Ulquiorra. Me. In LOVE. With… ULQUIORRA?! IN LOVE?! Me in love was a strange enough concept. I was a demonic spirit-turned evil monster with forcibly acquired shinigami powers and I worked for a bastard who wanted to destroy the city and take over an entire dimension. I didn't even know how to SPELL love, much less BE in it!

I laughed. Really, really hard. "You're outta your head. There is NO fucking way I'm in love with Ulquiorra. He's an annoying bastard. He hates me. He insults me all the time, and he's stuck up, and he has a superiority complex, and he looks nice, and-" I froze. What was that last one? Whatever it was, Gin was cracking up.

"Let's move on to YOUR love life, shall we?" I glared at him. He stopped laughing.

"I jus' need ta know one thing," he said. "Does Szayel like me?"

"Duh." How did he miss that one? Wait. Didn't Gin like Aizen though? I guess not, judging by what happened next.

"Sweet." Gin turned around and shouted, "Yo, Szayel! Wanna go on a date t'night?"

Szayel turned bright red and did his best to nod and smile.

"Sweet!" Gin was about to turn back around towards me, and then thought better (or worse?) of it, and added, "Hey, ya don't mind if Grimmjow and Ulquiorra join us, do ya? We could make it a double date!"

I couldn't believe my ears.

...

After school, I bolted out of the building. I wanted nothing more than to be home with my bedroom door locked before Ulquiorra found out that we were going on ANOTHER date. I could see it now; apocalyptic anger, and Gin's head burning on a pike, mine soon to follow.

I wonder why I didn't tell Gin otherwise. Most of what I'd done was punch him and make a break for it.

I heard Ulquiorra unlock the door and come in.

"Grimmjow, I'm going over to Szayel's room. Gin told me to tell you he's coming over here."

I glowered at the door. "Go tell Gin to fuck himself!"

"I'm ignoring that."

I heard the door at the end of the hall open and close. MY door, however, instead of being opened in the regular manner, was busted down. I knew I should have unlocked it.

"Gin, you asshole!" I shouted.

"Guess why I'm here!" He practically sang.

"To torment me?"

"Good guess." I cringed. "I'm here to dress you up for t'night!" I gaped. "Szayel asked Ulqui to help him get ready, so they're at our place, and I'm at yer's."

"Oh, wonderful. Fucking great, Gin. GET OUTTA MY ROOM."

"Nope!" Gin started going through my dresser. "I only have 'bout twenty minutes ta get'cha dressed up all cool for yer date. Then we're switchin' and you'll help me, and Szayel's gonna help Ulqui."

"But I don't wanna- Wait, how are we gonna switch without them seeing us and us seeing them in advance?"

"There's two doors, right?" Gin threw a t-shirt at me. I dodged it, and got hit in the face with black skinny jeans.

I held them up, and tried to imagine how tight they were. "I'm NOT wearing these. They're embarrassing. Fucking disturbing. NO WAY IN HELL." I threw them right back at Gin.

"Aww. But you'd prob'ly look hot in 'em. Ulquiorra wouldn't be able ta take his eyes off ya…or his hands fer that matt-" At this point, I slugged him. "Ow."

Gin continued to throw my clothes around the room. There was a pile on my bed that Gin had labeled 'potential' and a much bigger pile on the floor that he had labeled 'un-sexy crap'. Unfortunately, the black skinny jeans were in the 'potential' pile, which probably meant that I was gonna have to wear them.

After my entire dresser had been emptied, Gin went through the stuff on my bed, and eventually threw an outfit at me. "Go put that on!" He said, and shoved me into the bathroom.

"I don't like it. It's not… me. …God. I sound like a GIRL!" I shouted from the other side of the door. Gin laughed.

"Let's see it, Grimmy!" I opened the door. I was wearing a red shirt with a black pattern (probably one of the things that Ulquiorra had decided was not his style and shoved in my laundry basket instead) and (unfortunately) the black skinny jeans (which, fortunately, were not as skinny as I thought they were). Gin walked right up to me, and clipped what seemed like way too many chains to my belt loops. I had to admit, though, it distracted from the skinniness of the jeans, which was a plus.

Gin grinned. "Ya look AWESOME, Grimmy! And on that note, it's about time ta switch!" Gin dragged me through the hallway, just as the other door opened. I heard Szayel saying something about making poor Ulquiorra look 'absolutely adorably ravishing'.

...

Gin already had an outfit decided, so I didn't have to do anything. Once he was dressed, in an even skinnier pair of jeans than mine and a white t-shirt, he pulled me over to the couch and looked at me very seriously, and said, "Now, Grimmjow, I hope you two remember to use a condom-" and I slapped him. Three times. He stared at me. "What was that for?"

"Think hard, Gin. Think hard." Then I thought hard, and remembered something. "Wait. Does Aizen know where we're going?"

"Hell no! If he knew we were goin' on a double date tonight, he'd liquefy us!"

"What if he asks where we're going?"

"We lie and say we're meeting the girls at the movie theatre."

"But we're not going to the movies. We're going to eat dinner at a local sushi bar, and then we're going to the park afterwards to scare small children."

"I know- wait, what was that last bit?"

"Going to the park."

"After that."

"…to scare small children?"

"Not on yer first date, yer not!"

* * *

Haha. Sorry to stop it right there, but this chapter was getting kinda long. Next time... OOH~! Date night with Grimmy and Ulqui! Gin's gonna mess something up, you just know it.

Review if you like, but I won't burn your head on a pike if you don't.


	8. Too Much Awkwardness

Well, here we are again, listening to me try to come up with an excuse for not updating.

Have I tried 'sadistic teachers assigning us a crapload of essays' yet?

If not, that's why.

...

Either way, enjoy chapter eight.

* * *

Chapter eight; or Too Much Awkwardness

...

Seeing as we had about twenty minutes before our 'date' which I refused to admit was a date (and also refused to admit that I was looking forward to it), we decided to eavesdrop on Szayel and Ulquiorra.

We snuck in to my apartment, and seeing Ulquiorra's bedroom door closed, we each sat down on either side of it and listened to our 'dates' talk.

"Szayel Apollo Grantz. Explain yourself immediately," Ulquiorra stated. "I was under the impression that I was to help you prepare yourself for a date with Ichimaru. What are we doing in my bedroom?"

"Gin didn't tell you?" Szayel asked.

"Gin told me to help you get ready for the date tonight, and that's it."

"Gin told ME that after you helped me get ready, I was supposed to help you get ready too."

"Get me ready for what?" I could just imagine the look on Ulquiorra's face right now. Curiosity mixed with dread.

"Get you ready for your date with Grimmjow, silly! We're double-dating with you guys tonight. Did Gin not tell you ANYTHING?"

Dead silence. I glared at Gin. He shrugged and tried not to make eye contact. It remained quiet.

"Uhh, are you okay?" Szayel asked.

Still silent.

And then-

"WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU MEAN TO IMPLY WITH THAT STATEMENT?!" It was really hard not to laugh at him. I don't think I'd ever heard him this startled. I heard Ulquiorra take a couple of deep breaths, and then he said, "I haven't even asked him out yet. When did you imbeciles plan all this? Is Grimmjow in on it too? Did he plan this, or was it Ichimaru? Wait, we're going on a date? Me and Grimmjow, going on a date. A…DATE?!?! Aizen-sama is going to obliterate us! Cancel it! This is bad, this is very bad, SZAYEL, HELP ME, this is BAD- what am I going to wear?- bad, trouble, obliteration, Grimmjow, DATE?! Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh………..."

"Ulquiorra, calm down. It was Gin's idea. Grimmjow actually seemed pretty surprised, but he knows already. Aizen won't find out if we don't tell him. And I'm here to help you pick out what to wear." Gin and I could hardly contain our laughter.

"Really?" Ulquiorra asked.

"Really. Where do you keep your clothes?"

"Closet. What if Aizen-sama finds out…?"

"He won't. We're sneaking out before he gets back."

I looked at Gin. He hadn't told me that. Gin nodded and grinned.

"Now, calm down, Ulquiorra," Szayel continued. "You don't wanna be all hyper for your date in twenty minutes."

"TWENTY MINUTES?!?!!"

...

Gin and I waited outside the apartment building's elevator. We hadn't done much but laugh as we listened to Szayel going through Ulquiorra's clothes. From what I'd seen of Szayel's fashion sense, it was something to be dreaded. Gin thought he looked cute, however, so I didn't say anything about it to him.

We heard the door to my room open, and Szayel giggling excitedly and Ulquiorra muttering nervously.

Szayel practically skipped down the hallway. Somehow, Ulquiorra had managed to make him look good in a pair of baggy acid-wash jeans and a blue t-shirt, topped with his signature lab coat (which, believe it or not, he wears to school as well).

And then Ulquiorra came around the corner.

He was wearing skinny jeans and a green long-sleeved shirt, with a gray t-shirt over it. He looked perfectly normal, but for whatever reason, I think I liked that best. Whenever he didn't try very hard, he looked positively hot.

NO, I did not just say that.

As soon as he saw me, Ulquiorra blushed. Literally, bright red. It woulda been hysterical, but I think I was blushing too. Shit.

"C'mon, guys. We gotta get outta here before Aizen gets back to the building, or we're screwed." Gin led us into the elevator, and we rode down twenty-nine floors worth of awkward silence before we ran into You-Unfortunately-Know-Who just outside the elevator on the first floor.

"Hello, boys. Where are you off to, all dressed up like that?" Aizen looked us over, raising an eyebrow at us.

Gin and I looked at each other, remembering our excuse.

"We're meeting a group of girls from school at the movies, Aizen-sama," Gin said flawlessly, as if he didn't even need to lie. Ulquiorra looked around uncomfortably. I knew he hated lying, and for whatever reason, he really hated lying to Aizen. I could tell.

Aizen smiled at us suspiciously. "Well, you tell those girls not to keep you out too late, then. Eleven o'clock curfew." And he walked into the elevator, and the doors shut, and the four of us let out a breath that we hadn't known we'd been holding.

...

And we proceeded to walk in continuing awkward silence to the sushi restaurant Gin had decided on (honestly, I was getting used to instant ramen and Aizen's weird American food, but all this is Gin's fault, anyway. Best to let him decide how to ruin my evening, and possibly my life and reputation as well).

Gin smiled. Szayel fidgeted nervously and glanced at Gin every few moments. Ulquiorra watched sushi go by on the conveyor belt, and tried not to look at me. I leaned on the table and waited for the awkward silence to dissipate.

Of course, with Gin around, no kind of silence lasts very long.

"So… OOH! Look, California rolls!" Gin pointed at a plate of sushi on the conveyor, which were clearly not California rolls.

"Gin, you idiot. Can't you tell one sushi from the next?" I asked, eager for any conversation.

"No, not really. But I do know which one's th' wasabi roll." He grinned.

"Ichimaru , wasabi rolls do not exist." Woah. Ulquiorra spoke.

"Well, then, what's in the green ones?"

"Probably cucumber," Szayel suggested. "Try one and see."

"Or try some wasabi," I suggested, and shoved a nice, large chopstickful of wasabi down Gin's throat. He gagged. And then-

"OH, HOLY SHIT, SPICYYYYYYY!!" He shouted, and proceeded to down his entire water cup, plus mine too, which Szayel eagerly gave him.

Ulquiorra ignored the whole thing, and took a plate of kappa maki off the conveyor belt.

"Dude, Gin! You practically spewed flames there, man! That was fucking awesome!" I shouted, laughing. "Do it again! Man, I wish we'd videotaped tha-" Ulquiorra shoved a sushi roll in my mouth.

"Shut up. You're loud," He said. And this guy's supposed to be my date?!

I wondered about his complete change of heart for the rest of dinner. When we left the building, he'd been blushing like a teenage girl. And now, he was stoic and bitchy, as per usual.

It's things like this that really make me want to know exactly what' s up with him. Find out every possible thing about him. And only I get to know… Where did that come from, eh?! Am I some cheesy romantic now? Good fucking lord, I hope not. I'm glad this is an inner monologue; otherwise people would be staring.

...

After dinner, we went to the park. The same park, unfortunately, that Stark and Nanao had dragged us to yesterday. Ulquiorra and I sat down on the platform thingy at the top of the sliding board.

RING RING RING.

Ulquiorra reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. "Stark's calling me," he said. Speak of the devil.

"How long have you had a cell phone?" I asked. He ignored me, and answered the phone.

"Hello, Stark. Yes, this is Ulquiorra. Who else would it be?... Oh, she did?... And what did she say?... I see, I'm very sorry…. Yes, I'm being sincere. …Oh, really?...And what did he say?... …… Alright, then. … What do you mean, 'where am I' ? … I know I'm not in my room. … NO; I will not tell you where I am instead. … NO! I am NOT in Grimmjow's room, you perverted moron…. Stark, I'm hanging up the phone. Really, I am… Stark, I mean it. I'm hanging up now… Stark- Goodbye, Stark… Stark- UGH!" Click.

"What did Stark say?" I asked. Ulquiorra glowered at me.

"Stark says Nanao broke up with him because he's too much like her captain, and she really dislikes her captain. Then Nanao's captain called and asked Stark out in her place." Ulquiorra stopped to gauge my reaction. I was trying not to laugh, and he could tell.

"Continue. This is funny," I said.

Ulquiorra blushed. "And then he said that he had been looking for me, because he'd wanted to tell me in person. But I was not in my room." He stopped and blushed even redder. "And so he asked where I was, but I didn't exactly want to say 'Oh, I'm on a date with Szayel, Gin and Grimmjow,' because he would track us down and take photos." Even redder now. "So he asks if I'm in YOUR room." I heard that part, but hearing it again made it even more amusing.

"Keep going. I wanna hear the rest." The rest, meaning what Stark was saying while Ulquiorra was threatening to hang up on him. I could only imagine.

Ulquiorra opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Then he blushed six shades of red.

"Out with it, dammit!"

Ulquiorra took a deep breath. He opened and closed his mouth like a dying fish a few times. And then he said, "Starksaidthathewasgonnabreakintoyourroomandtakeaphotoofushavingsex!!" and proceeded to turn even redder, which I didn't think was possible.

It took me a minute to fit in all the spaces between words, but I did eventually. I laughed. Really, really hard. Ulquiorra glared at me.

"It's not funny!"

"Yes it is!"

"What is so funny?!'

"Your reaction."

"What?"

"Your reaction is what's so fucking funny!"

"How is it funny for me to be embarrassed?"

"Because it's hella cute, stupid."

"HUH?" The blush came back, as strong as ever. I thought back and realized what had just come outta my mouth. And realized how fucking crazy he must have thought I was.

And then he said, "Did you just call me cute?" He laughed. "I didn't know you had that _femenine_ word in your repertoire, Grimmjow."

"Whattaya mean?! I know plenty of fucking girly words, bitch! Listen!"and (I cannot believe myself) I proceeded to list every single one of them. "I know lotsa girly words. Like 'cute' and 'pretty' and 'lipstick' and shit." Ulquiorra laughed even harder. "And… and makeup… and dresses….and…uh, what's it called….. romance! That thing!" Ulquiorra laughed, and then he stopped and looked at me.

"Are you entertaining me on purpose, Grimmjow?" And maybe I was. Who knows. What the fuck. Ulquiorra can agree to go on a date with me, I can make him laugh on purpose. Wait, now the date's MY idea?! I coulda sworn it was Gin's… Eh, what the hell. Not like it matters.

"I asked you a question."

"Huh?" I said.

"I asked you if you were distracting me on purpose."

"I thought you said 'entertaining'."

"Huh?"

"Eh, nevermind."

"Alright, then. I won't."

"Let's play the 'no laughing' game," I suggested.

"The what?"

"We take turns tryin' to make each other laugh, and we try not to laugh." I wanna see if he's capable of humor.

"All right, then. You start."

"Okay…." I looked around for something I could make fun of. "Hey, look over there," I said, standing up. "Gin and Szayel are holding hands, and some kid's aimin' a Frisbee at them!" Ulquiorra stood up and walked over to where I was standing. We watched as they leaned in for a kiss, and then Szayel got knocked off the park bench by a speeding disc. Both of us laughed. Gin turned and picked up the Frisbee, and winged it right back with double the force. The kid ran for it. I laughed again.

"I've lost already…" Ulquiorra said wistfully.

"Lost what?" Your mind?

"The game. I laughed."

"Well, in that case we both lost. …Dammit! I lost!"I cringed. We both lost. Then I had an idea. Lost. GET lost… "Hey, Ulquiorra. Wanna ditch Gin and Szayel?"

"Pardon?"

"Leave. Let's leave. They're makin' me awkward." To prove my point, I gestured in their direction. They were making out on a park bench.

"Let's leave," Ulquiorra agreed, blushing. He pulled out his phone, and texted something to someone.

"Who're you talkin' to?"

"Szayel. I'm letting him know that we're leaving, so that they don't take the car without us."

"Good plan."

"So… Where do we go, then?"

"I dunno."

"Ice cream?"

"Maybe. Or we could run around the park and scare little kids." I grinned at him hopefully.

"Ice cream."

So we went to go get ice cream.

* * *

There you are; Sorry once again that it took so long. Don't expect a fast update either; my teachers seem to think we want a lot of tests right before our week-long end-of-the-year trip.

Review if you'd like. I won't kill you if you don't though.


	9. Aizen Hates Us

Why, hello there :D

I finally updated quickly!!

Or maybe that's just because... I'M ON SUMMER BREAK NOW!

Enjoy the (longer than usual) chapter!

* * *

Chapter 9; or Aizen Hates us for all the Right/Wrong Reasons

...

The closest ice cream parlor was just about to close, so I busted the door open and ordered two chocolate cones. Ulquiorra tried to pretend he didn't know me, but it was hard, because he was laughing too much at the look of horror on the teenage clerk's face when I shouted, "Gimmie my fucking ice cream, bitch!"

We sat on the curb of the street, finishing off our ice creams, and trying not to look awkward, for what felt like hours. The silence was broken by Ulquiorra's ringtone, which made us both jump.

"Hello?" He said into the phone, and then pressed the speakerphone button and mouthed, 'It's Stark again'.

"Hey, Ulquiorra," came out of the phone. Stark seemed disappointed. "I busted down the door to Grimmjow's bedroom, but nobody was there. Did you guys climb out the window or something?"

I started to say something, but Ulquiorra shoved the remains of my ice cream in my mouth to shut me up. "I told you already, Stark. Neither of us are home," Ulquiorra said calmly.

"When did you say that? You never said that." Stark was right, Ulquiorra had never said anything about that. "Is Grimmjow there? I hear choking," Stark added.

"MMPH-GAAK- Hey, Stark," I said. Ulquiorra facepalmed.

"Hey! Where are you guys? I've been looking for you all afternoon! Oh, and so has Aizen."

"Aizen?!" Ulquiorra and I looked at each other.

"What the fuck does Aizen want?"

"Yes, Stark. What does he want?"

"…Well, I can't quite say I'm sure. But he asked me a bunch of questions, and he asked Nel a bunch of questions, and Halibel too, and I think Nnoitra-" he shuddered audibly at the name "-who, by the way is stalking me- a bunch of questions about whether or not you told them about your group date with a bunch of girls from school. I didn't believe him for a second about the girls when he asked me, but I didn't tell him, because he looked really pissed. I said I'd look for you guys, though. You might wanna get back here and make sure Aizen's not going through your stuff, looking for a diary or something. I think he mighta found Szayel's…"

"Szayel keeps a diary?" I asked.

"Oh, dear…" Ulquiorra looked from me to the phone. "We should go, Stark. We'll bring Gin and Szayel back too."

"One more thing!" Stark paused dramatically. "If you die, can we borrow your bedroom?"

"NO!" we both shouted.

"And who's 'we'?!" I added.

"My new boyfriend, Shunsui," Stark said matter-of-factly. "Well, you guys should go now. I'll see you when you get back…" Stark hung up. Ulquiorra immediately texted Szayel: STAY WHERE YOU ARE; WE'RE COMING BACK.

...

"What's the problem, guys?" Szayel asked when we got there. He was sitting on Gin's lap on a park bench, and there was a mangled Frisbee and a little kid's shoe in the grass about six feet away.

"We need to get home now. Aizen suspects something," Ulquiorra said.

"Meanin' what?" Gin asked.

"Meaning he'll fucking kill us if he finds out we were on a double-date, no girls allowed!" I shouted. "C'mon, let's go!"

We got in the car, and Gin speeded all the way back to the apartment building. I never knew the car could go over 120 before.

...

We decided to use the elevator, and spent the time putting up with the elevator music and trying to remember the names of four girls in their class. We could only remember three, so we decided that Gin's date stood him up, and that I'd gone out with Chizuru, Szayel with Tatsuki, and Ulquiorra with Mahana. We stepped out of the elevator, making up conversation about our 'date' as we went, and Gin complaining about 'being stood up' while we all tried not to laugh too hard.

Aizen was waiting for us outside the door to Gin and Szayel's room, which was closer to the elevator. "Well?" He said, obviously forcing a smile. We were trying to keep a straight (ha, ha) face ourselves.

"Well what?" I broke the silence with my usual rudeness.

"How were your dates?"

"Fine. Mahana-chan was nice, but she told me she doesn't like me enough to go out with me again," Ulquiorra lied perfectly.

"Okay. Tatsuki was too loud; she hung out with Gin and Grimmjow more than me," Szayel said dejectedly.

"Interesting. Chizuru's a bit of a weirdo, but I like her enough." I said.

"I got stood up," Gin finished.

"I'm sorry to hear that. What movie did you see?"

"Harry Potter 6-"

"-National Treasure 2-"

"-Star Trek-"

"-High School Musical 3!"

We all stared at each other.

"Er, we each took our dates to different movies, because we couldn't agree on one," Ulquiorra said. Aizen raised an eyebrow.

"Well, that's very good. You're back a bit earlier than expected, however."

"The ice cream place was closed," I said.

"I see. Well, off to bed. You have school in the morning."

"No we don't, t'morrow's Saturday," Gin said. Aizen twitched.

"Well, at least go back to your rooms." And he left. We waited until we saw his door close, and then we all burst into laughter and high-fived each other, and went to our respective rooms.

...

"What are you doing, Grimmjow?" Ulquiorra said, walking up behind me. I had my face pressed up to a crack between the door and the doorway of Gin and Szayel's room. "You aren't SPYING on them, are you?"

"Why not?" I said simply.

"Is- is that a CAMERA?!"

"Why yes it is. You've got great observational skills."

"Why is it a camera?"

"Because Nel wants photos to use as reference for drawing Doujinshi."

"Good lord." Ulquiorra peeked through the doorway right below me.

"Now you're spying too."

"I'm curious."

"You mean perverted."

"No, that's you."

"Shh, they'll hear you!"

Truth be told, even if they did hear us, Szayel and Gin were too absorbed in making out on the sofa to want to do anything about us.

But they certainly sat up real quick when Aizen busted the other door open.

"Aizen-sama!" both of them shouted.

"What're ya doin' here?" Gin asked, obviously nervous.

"A better question, Ichimaru, is what are you DOING?!" Aizen looked positively apocalyptic. I don't think I've ever seen him madder than this.

"We're, uh…" Szayel stuttered nervously.

"Practicing!" Gin shouted.

"Practicing WHAT?"

"Practicing… fer th' drama performance! Only, the lead girl isn't here, so I made Szayel practice with me instead!" Gin ad-libbed his way into an even worse situation. I didn't think it was possible, but he did. Gin wasn't even IN drama! What if Aizen went to see the play…?

"Get serious, Ichimaru. And Szayel, I called Tatsuki's house."

"What?!"

"She hasn't left the house all afternoon." Szayel gulped. Gin looked worriedly at him. "Neither did Chizuru or Mahana. And I notice you never told me WHO stood you up, Ichimaru. Now I'll ask you again, what are you doing, and whose idea was it?"

Silence.

Szayel started to say something, but Gin easily talked over him and said, "My idea, Aizen-sama."

Aizen practically blew up. I'm not even gonna say what he said, because it makes me fucking mad just thinking about it.

Ulquiorra and I took this as a cue to make a break for it. We ended up running to my room, shutting the door, and pushing my virtually unused desk up against it.

"What the fuck do we do?!"

"I don't know!"

"How the fuck did he get their numbers?!"

"I have no idea!"

"What now?!"

"Shut up!"

I shut up.

And then I noticed the fire-escape ladder outside my window. "I got it! Ulquiorra, you got your phone?"

"Yes."

"Come on, then! What the hell are ya waitin' for?!" I flung the window open, and started down the ladder. Ulquiorra followed. It took forever to climb down twenty-nine stories, and about three-quarters of the way down we heard my door break open and the desk slam against the other wall and Aizen shout our names at the top of his lungs. He looked out the window, and started climbing down the ladder after us. I climbed down to the second floor and jumped the rest of the way. "Ulquiorra! Hurry up and jump, dammit!"

"No!"

"Why the fucking hell not?!"

"Because I'm too high up and I'll break a bone and I won't be able to run!"

I thought about that for a second. "Then I'll catch you."

"WHAT?!"

"Jump, and I'll catch you! Are you fucking deaf, or just stupid?! JUMP!" And he did. I gotta admit, he's much heavier than he looks. We stared at each other for a second, and then we heard Aizen shouting at us, and I took off at a run without bothering to put Ulquiorra down first.

...

It must have looked hella weird. One guy carrying another guy bridal style, running down the streets of Karakura, with a really angry dude in a weird white uniform chasing after about two blocks behind, screaming obscenities the likes of which would curl a child's hair.

Now imagine that Ulquiorra's also trying to text Szayel about where the four of us should meet up. And screaming at me to let him go.

"No, if I let you go, he'll catch you!"

"Are you calling me slow?! Come on, Szayel! Text back…"

"I AM calling you slow. And puny, too. You shouldn't be this light."

"So now I'm underweight AND slow, Grimmjow?!"

"That's what I said. Now shut the fuck up."

"GET BACK HERE, YOU DISGUSTING EXCUSES FOR ESPADA!!" Aizen shouted.

"Shit, he's gaining on us," I said.

"How do you know that?!"

"Well, either that, or he all of a sudden got much louder." I dared to look behind us, and saw that Aizen was in fact catching up, and that we only had ONE FUCKING BLOCK until we were dead.

"Subway!" Ulquiorra shouted.

"WHAT?"

"There's a subway entrance right there!"

"Seriously?! Sweet! Tell Szayel!"

"Okay- wait, we're going on the subway?!"

"If we get there fast enough, Aizen-tard can't follow us!"

"Just because there's a subway, that doesn't mean there's a train waiting there for us!"

"Shit. Screw that, then- HEY! D'you know where Kurosaki lives?"

"Why on earth would you want to know where Kurosaki lives?!"

"We could stay at his place."

"Are you out of your mind, Grimmjow?! There is no way Kurosaki Ichigo would let us in his house! It isn't like we can just show up at the door looking like this and say, 'Oh, hi, Kurosaki! Aizen's trying to kill us because he just found out that we went on a double date with Szayel and Ichimaru Gin! Can the four of us stay here for a while until he stops chasing us?' I DON'T THINK SO."

I had to admit, he had a point. Aizen kept shouting at us, and I hazarded a guess that he was pretty close behind now.

"Ulquiorra, how close is Aizen?"

He looked, and flinched. "Half a block."

"Great."

"GREAT?!"

"How many pedestrians are around?"

"Not too many, why?"

"D'you think you can accurately shoot a Cero while we're running?"

"IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE PLANNING?!"

"That's what I'm planning."

Dead silen- No, Aizen's still screaming; It can't be silent.

"I think I can do that."

"Huh?"

"Hit Aizen with a Cero from here."

"Seriously?!"

"Yes."

"THEN DO IT!"

And he did.

Only, he missed a bit, and blew up the sidewalk in front of Aizen instead of hitting Aizen himself. About six car alarms went off. It worked either way, though, because the bastard had to stop for a minute and cough all the cement dust out of his lungs (I think he inhaled a bunch of it because he was shouting at us). Either way, we managed to turn the corner and go down the next street over, back the way we came. Aizen stopped following us, but we could hear him shouting, blocks away.

...

We found an empty house near Karakura high, one that had been vacated a while ago, probably because the person there was dead, and Ulquiorra texted Szayel the address. Szayel said that he'd be there in a minute, once Gin was in a more sane (Gin, sane?!), or at least semi-sane state.

Meanwhile, Ulquiorra and I went inside, sat down on the ancient gray sofa, and called Stark.

"Hello?" giggled a rather drunk-sounding voice. Fuck.

"Stark? It's Grimmjow."

"Oh?" Stark seemed to sober up at the mention of my name. "Is Ulquiorra there too?"

"Yes, but that's beside the point, you fucking moron. You and your boyfriend need to vacate the premises before Aizen finds out about you."

"Why?"

I could think of a million rather rude ways to put this, and I opted for one of the less obscene. "Because Aizen's a fucking homophobe and he just found out that Gin and Szayel, along with Ulquiorra and I, were out on a double date tonight, and promptly confronted and fucking verbally assaulted Gin, and Ulquiorra and I ran for it and he chased us through fucking Karakura screaming insults at us. That's why."

Stark was quiet for a while, and then said, "Hold on, Grimmjow. Hey, Shun? Can we go back to your place tonight instead? … Why not? … I don't care. …Can we go rent a hotel room then? …K, good. Hey Grimmjow?"

"Yeah?"

"Shun and I are going to a hotel downtown."

"Okay."

"How long should we stay there?"

"Until your boyfriend has to go home."

"K. Seeya." Stark hung up.

"That was nice of you," Ulquiorra said.

"Hmph."

The doorbell rang. Ulquiorra got up to answer it.

"GRIMMJOW, GET OVER HERE!" he shouted. I ran over to the door, and saw this: Szayel, practically in tears and utterly exhausted, attempting to support a rather frazzled Gin, who looked like he had just coughed up blood and fainted, which he probably had. I took Gin from Szayel, because he was obviously too much smaller to actually be able to carry him, and dragged him over to the couch and lay him down. Ulquiorra shut the door and locked it.

"Aizen attacked him. Gin said it was his fault, and he attacked him," Szayel whispered.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" I shouted. "The next time I see that fucking bastard, I'll-"

"You'll what, Grimmjow? Get yourself hurt too?!" Ulquiorra interrupted. I shut up and sat down.

"Sza…yel?" Gin mumbled. "Guys? Where… where're we-" Gin started coughing up blood again, and Szayel flinched. Once Gin had calmed down, he reached out a hand and Szayel took it, looking worriedly from Gin to the door.

Ulquiorra and I looked at each other.

"This is gonna be an issue at school tomorrow," Ulquiorra said.

"HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU BE WORRYING ABOUT SCHOOL AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!" I shouted.

"I mean, if all of us are absent, Aizen will have time to look for us."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," Gin reminded us. "He'll have time ta look fer us anyway."

I spent the next twenty minutes boarding up all the doors and windows.

...

It was to my (dis?)pleasure to discover that there was only two bedrooms in the house. And that each bedroom only had one queen-size bed in it. We, of course, had to let Szayel and Gin share a room, which left me and Ulquiorra sharing the other one.

Ulquiorra fell asleep almost immediately, but that's because I wasn't the one hogging all the covers AND all the pillows.

I went downstairs to make tea, because I saw no possible way to get to sleep. Besides, I was all jumpy from earlier, and I was beginning to get paranoid, thinking that every creak the old house made was Aizen trying to pry the boards off the door. Even though the boards were inside.

Just as I'd finished making my tea, I heard someone coming down the stairs. It was Ulquiorra.

"I couldn't sleep," he lied.

"Bullshit," I replied.

"Yeah, I know."

We were quiet. Ulquiorra sat down next to me at the table, and we were quiet some more.

"Could I have a sip of your tea?" He asked. I raised an eyebrow at this remark. I had heard from the Orihime girl that sharing food was equivalent to an indirect kiss. I figured Ulquiorra must not have been paying attention to her when she said this, so I nodded and handed him the mug.

It was quiet again.

Ulquiorra handed me back the mug, and said, "I didn't expect you to let me."

"Huh?"

"I know you heard Inoue Orihime describing the traditions. I thought you would pour tea on my head, or something else Grimmjow-ish."

"I thought you hadn't been paying attention to her."

"I was."

"So then we…"

"Technically, yes. But indirectly."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, that was that."

"Duh."

"And this is this," he said plainly, and tilted his head up and kissed me lightly on the lips.

Silence.

"Aizen is gonna fucking murder us," I whispered, and kissed him right back.

* * *

Happy? I am.

But certainly not done yet.

Oh, no.

Review if you like, but I won't 'fucking murder' you if you don't.


End file.
